Sheffield mum fighting for life in Covid coma as son issues plea to people ignoring lockdown

Susan Allsop, a 64-year-old mum-of-three, who runs her own stationery firm, ‘loved life’ and was ‘very well’, regularly attending the gym when it was open, before being struck down by coronavirus around five weeks ago.

Her 35-year-old son Craig, who lives with Susan and her husband at their home in Gleadless, told how after she began feeling unwell doctors initially put it down to some new medication she was taking but she got progressively worse, collapsing and developing a fever, and was taken to hospital after testing positive for Covid.

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There her condition got progressively worse and about three weeks ago she was placed in a coma, which her loved ones are unsure whether she will ever come out of safely.

Speaking to Toby Foster on BBC Radio Sheffield this morning, Craig said: “Every day’s torture walking past her bedroom and seeing her handbag in the hallway. It’s just heartbreaking. She was such a good mum to all of us. It’s just something we never expected.

"We just want people to realise how serious it is. My mum had no real underlying issues. She had asthma but not chronic and she’d only developed asthma in the last couple of years so she certainly wasn’t a poorly woman.

"She really did protect herself. She has her own business, a stationery company, which she shares with her business partner, and they’d alternated days in the office so they didn’t come into contact. She didn’t go out shopping and she stayed at home. She didn’t see her family, she didn’t see her grandchildren, to protect everyone and protect herself.

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"Somehow, she did pick her prescription up, she was late getting the flu jab, so she did attend the doctor’s just a couple of weeks before, somehow she’s picked it up from somewhere. That’s the thing really. It’s how dangerous this thing is.

Craig added: “It may be too late (for us) but just to stop other families going through this pain and suffering. That’s all we can ask for right now.

"I understand how difficult all this is for people and how they desperately want to see their families and friends but we’re so close to the end now it’s just not worth risking. That’s the way we’re viewing it.

"We got so close to the end with Mum. We protected her for nearly 12 months and now with the vaccines coming out there is an end in sight and if we all hold on that little bit longer we can make it through. We want everyone to make it through.”

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Craig, who is planning to walk from Sheffield to Lincoln, where Susan has a caravan, and has helped raise more than £5,000 for the NHS, said he was dismayed by some of the conspiracy theories he had seen being shared on social media.

"I’ve seen messages put out saying it’s not real, the vaccine’s there to control us and things, and I’m just amazed at how people are thinking during Covid… I’m just shocked that the scaremongering’s filtering into people really.”

To donate to the fundraising appeal, visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/susanallsop.