The daughter of a woman with coronavirus ended up on a ventilator after knowingly entering her parents' infected home to provide care.
Sisters Annette Gardner and Sue Roberts moved into the Wythall, Worcestershire home of their elderly and ill parents Vic and Margaret Gardner.
Sadly they could not help Vic to recovery and he died from Covid-19, the Birmingham Mail reports.
With their care and attention, Margaret survived.
The sisters' intervention came at a cost however, with both women ending up in hospital having contracted coronavirus.
The disease came close to claiming 58-year-old Annette's life.
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Her recovery has been well documented thanks to a video released by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.
In the footage, staff at Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital can be seen applauding loudly as she finally leaves intensive care on April 18.
Annette, who works at Heart of Worcestershire College in Redditch, and her sister had made the decision to step into the breach only days before an ambulance was called, as it became clear her mum and dad were ill.
“They knew what they were going into,” says Annette’s daughter, Emma Kirby.
“But that’s what you do for your family.
“They went in to save their lives, and they succeeded in saving one of them. They are heroes in our eyes.”
Vic, aged 89, died on March 26, just six days after he was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston.
Caring hospital staff briefly reunited Vic and Margaret in hospital for their wedding anniversary on March 22.
It was the last time the couple saw each other.
Margaret, 83, has been left with lung scarring that is unlikely to heal and is now living in a hospice.
Prior to the illness she had been looking forward to moving into a sheltered housing bungalow with Vic.
Meanwhile Annette, grandmother to three children, spent 17 days battling to survive in intensive care after she and Sue were admitted to the Alexandra Hospital on March 26.
So severe was her condition that she said goodbye to daughter Emma, son Dave Gardner and his partner Cassie Abbott by video link.
She came back from the brink and beat the virus.
“I feel very strange,” the mum-of-two told the Redditch Advertiser from hospital.
“I nearly died. I lost my father and nearly lost my mother. I thought I was going to die.
“I have never felt like this before in my life. This is one of the worst viruses anybody could ever go through."
But Emma, mother to a three-year-old son, insists there is inspiration to be gained from the story.
“The last five weeks have been like a blur, a blur that we’ve been through,” says the 28-year-old beauty therapist. “It was like ‘How much more can a family go through?’
“But this is letting people know that you CAN come out of this. I know there are a lot of people not coming out of this, and that’s why our message has to be said.
“We are both lucky and unlucky, I suppose. I have lost my grandad and my nan will never be 100 per cent better. But we are so grateful we have three people still with us.”
The 28-year-old added: “My poor nan has had to grieve by herself.
“She was in hospital for five weeks. I don’t think she’ll 100 per cent recover from it, but she surprises us more and more each day.
“Grandad got ill before lockdown. How he got it, we don’t know.
“They were moving house – they lived in a nice, big house and were moving to a warden-controlled place.
“They had an amazing life. They lived a life of cruise ships and went to the Warner holiday places. They had an amazing life.”
Emma admitted that she believed the family death toll would be greater as she watched her mother slowly slip away.
“We saw how quickly it happened to my grandad and thought that would be it,” she said.
“The last time I spoke to my mum, she was so struggling to breathe, and she looked awful.
“At first, she was Facetiming us from hospital. That changed to being on oxygen.
“She got really bad. She was hardly talking to us; she was fading away.
“She was trying so hard but this virus was taking her. When my mum was going into intensive care, she was saying things we needed to know.
“The doctors said they didn’t know if she’d survive. She was really worried. This was real, this was happening.
“I think the video they put out was to show the positives of it. They are so proud of how far my mum has come.
“Seeing my mum clapping, she’s so grateful to everyone. I can’t thank the hospital staff enough, they have been amazing. They were just there for her."
