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He was in the same hospital and intensive care unit where the Prime Minister is now a week ago, but the excitement and memories are still terribly raw for Dave Hunt.
She tears up several times as she speaks to us in her London apartment on the banks of the River Thames.
“Intensive care is not a fun place to be,” he says, “you see people die … it is absolutely horrible.
Dave Hunt spent four days in intensive care
“I sell software for a living. I’m not a nurse or a doctor. You see people who just go in and out. I just wanted to get out of there.”
Hunt spent 10 days at St Thomas’ Hospital after testing positive for COVID-19, and was treated by four of them in the same intensive care unit (ICU) where Boris Johnson is now.
“Boris Johnson will be well taken care of,” he told us, “and he will have a dedicated nurse who will verify that his oxygen levels are high … and he will sit there with as much air as possible in his lungs.”
The 38-year-old man was one of the youngest in the ICU, but within minutes of arriving at the hospital by ambulance, a team of doctors told him that he would need a respirator because his breathing was very poor.
“I read that the odds of survival after putting on a respirator were only 50-50,” he said. “I thought it was going to be one of the ones that don’t survive.”
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The doctors told him that they were going to sleep him for five to 10 days and that they gave him time to call his closest family.
“For me, that was it,” he said. “I called my brother and told him the password for my computer where my will is.”
He arrived after 48 hours and woke up to the sound of “organized chaos”.
“I thought he was alive. Am I dead? He was clearly alive but I had this fifteen-inch tube in my throat and I couldn’t speak.”
He said the most disturbing sound was the constant noise of alarms ringing as other patients’ health dived.
“I heard the head nurse say, ‘Look guys … we only have nine nurses … and I’m going to say there were about 20 beds (with patients).
“It just shows how stressful this service is. It’s … I don’t want to say it because it sounds like I’m ungrateful or critical, but it’s like organized chaos. They are professionals but nobody has seen anything.” like.”
Dave Hunt was tearful when he shared his experience of being in intensive care
He was transferred after four days to the high dependency ward, the next level of intensive care, but the trauma continued.
“They removed the tube, which was a horrible experience … but I still couldn’t speak, my throat was swollen.
“There were 10 tubes coming out of my neck … two or three for blood, saline, a tube through my nose to eat, and a catheter.”
