It started out as a routine day, but by the evening Brendan Sheridan was in an induced coma.
The 41-year-old spent the next two weeks unconscious, kept alive by a machine.
But on that morning, on March 29, the assistant coach at Oldham RLFC (Roughyeds) woke up feeling fine.
He ate his breakfast at his home in Dewsbury and did some work.
It was later on that the dad-of-three began to struggle with his breathing.
Over the next ten hours he deteriorated rapidly as he fell ill with Covid-19.
"It was like someone had had squeezed the air out of my lungs", he said.
He phoned 111, and they told him they would phone back in a few hours.
He phoned again, and was given the same response.
But his condition started getting worse.
"My auntie phoned an ambulance and paramedics came.
"The last thing I remember saying to the paramedic was 'where are we?, where have you brought me?', That's my last memory."
He was taken to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield and put into an induced coma for a fortnight.
Medics later told him he was the first coronavirus patient at the hospital to be put on a ventilator.
Brendan then contracted pneumonia and doctors packed his body in ice to bring his temperature down.
Waking up
Two weeks later, Brendan woke up from the coma in an oxygen hood.
He felt confused and scared.
"I was claustrophobic. Because I had been packed in ice I couldn't move. I just panicked. I couldn't speak. I didn't know I had been out for that long.
"The room was dark, the nurses were flying about in the hospital. It was just like 'what's happened?'"
He began suffering hallucinations due to the medication he was on.
"In the room things were moving, the lights were flying round the room. I had vivid dreams about dying and not breathing.
"I was waking up in cold sweats. I kept asking (the staff at the hospital) to put me back to sleep.
"I was begging them to knock me out.
"I spoke to my family members, it was traumatic for them."
Brendan made remarkable physical progress in the days that followed.
He had lost two stone in two weeks. After a few days he was able to get out of bed.
He said he felt like a 'child learning to walk again'.
He spent ten days recovering on a ward.
As soon as he left the hospital he began doing seven kilometre walks.
He began putting weight back on, through healthy eating and exercise.
But the mental scars took longer to heal.
Brendan, a former Sheffield Eagles and Batley Bulldogs rugby player, had struggled with his mental health in the past.
It was due to 'personal stuff' that he hadn't dealt with, he said.
"Being a rugby player and a male, it's hard to speak about it. Back then, coming through the sport 20 years ago, it was very, very rare that a man would come out and speak about their problems, it wasn't part of the sport in general until now."
The trauma of the illness began opening up 'old wounds', and he suffered PTSD.
He was traumatised by his brush with death, particularly the thought that he could have died without getting to say goodbye to his family.
"I would never have got to say goodbye to my kids, or said that I loved them. Or said sorry for things in my past.
"It's very hard to come to terms with. That's one of the big things you struggle with.
"Over 40,000 people have died (from coronavirus in the UK). I'm one of the very few that were so close that survived.
"As much as you celebrate me being here, it's not nice to know that so many have gone. You feel bad. It's very, very sad."
He has suffered insomnia and has gone days without sleeping at all.
When he does sleep, he still has vivid dreams of lying in hospital beds struggling to breathe.
"I have my family around me, I'm trying to talk to them, to say goodbye and I love them. They can't hear me", he said.
"I wake up in different parts of the bedroom in a cold sweat."
Getting help
Club chairman of the Roughyeds, Chris Hamilton, encouraged Brendan to get therapy through sports mental health charity Sporting Chance.
"I owe a massive thanks to Chris, for nudging me in that direction. It took a lot to take those first steps."
He has started sessions with counsellor Craig Dexter.
Brendan said it was 'tough to let someone in' but the therapy has been 'fantastic'.
"It's probably saved my life. Without it I wouldn't have wanted to be here and would have dealt with that badly. The only way out of that is suicide," he said.
He would urge other people who are struggling with anxiety or depression to open up to someone else.
"It's about dealing with each day as it comes," he said.
His colleagues in the Rugby League have shown tremendous support for Brendan through his ordeal.
While he was ill in hospital, they took part in an initiative to run a mile to support him.
"It's very humbling", he said.
