Young Sheffield woman describes ‘scary’ scene at Northern General as she’s tested for coronavirus

Jessie Clark hopes her story will get through to those ‘idiots’ still flouting government orders to stay at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The 26-year-old from Handsworth told how she developed a cough on Sunday, having already had occasional body aches and headaches, and this got worse the following day.

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By Tuesday she began to feel breathless and struggled to walk, and on Wednesday she was feeling lightheaded, her breathing was very fast and shallow and she felt a pain around her ribs, back and abdomen.

That’s when her fiance called 999 and they were advised to attend Northern General Hospital.

“I was masked up and taken straight to resus for testing,” said Jessica, who has chronic kidney disease and had a kidney removed five years ago.

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“In the six hours I was sat there the unit filled up and more patients were coming in that they didn’t have capacity for. Almost all of these patients were COVID-19 positive and needed an isolation cubicle for the safety of the staff... but they were all gone.

“In the time I sat there I watched a man be wheeled off to ICU to be ventilated, another man sat there coughing foam up off his lungs and a lady who was COVID-19 positive and had gone septic. It was scary!”

Jessie described how she was not allowed anyone with her and the only human contact she had was when staff put on their protective equipment to come and test her or shouted at her from a safe distance.

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Luckily her oxygen levels went up and she was sent home, where she is now self-isolating and still feels short of breath.

Jessie, who works in printing, says she was not tested for COVID-19 but a doctor told her that based on the results of her X-ray and blood tests it was ‘safe to assume it’s coronavirus’ and she should keep an eye on her.