ONE of the first patients treated for Covid at Glan Clwyd Hospital has spoken out about his harrowing experience to mark a year since the first lockdown.

Neil Price was the first patient to be treated on the critical care unit at the Bodelwyddan hospital.

He was admitted to hospital on March 9 2020 and discharged on Monday, April 20 after spending six weeks recovering; staff lined the corridor to ward nine to see Neil off home.

Speaking to mark the one year anniversary since the first lockdown, Mr Price said: “The first thing I can remember is going to the doctors and being rushed to hospital. After that, I can’t remember a thing.

“I spent 18 days on a ventilator in ICU and a further three days recuperating.

“Whilst in ICU, I lost two-and-a-half stone in weight and my arm and leg muscles deteriorated.”

Mr Price, who is married to Diane, was transferred onto ward nine. There he was diagnosed with pneumonia and Sepsis.

“I spent a total of six weeks in Glan Clwyd,” Mr Price added.

“After that I was discharged and I had in-house physio to re-build my leg muscles and arm muscles and online counselling for Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which I suffered and sleep disorder.”

Mr Price suffered a heart attack in September 2020. He returned to Glan Clwyd for six nights, had a stent fitted before being discharged.

Just over a year on, and Mr Price said he is feeling a lot better.

“I still have nights of fatigue,” he said.

“No words can express my thanks and gratitude to all the staff in ICU, ward nine and critical care.”

Phillip Mann, of Bodelwyddan, was diagnosed with Covid / pneumonia in April 2020.

“It started off with flu symptoms,” Mr Mann said.

“My wife, who is a nurse, tested positive for Covid about a week earlier and then obviously I picked it up. I was feeling quite ill at home and then I collapsed in the bathroom and I went to Glan Clwyd Hospital by ambulance.

“I went initially to the Covid ward and then things got quite bad. My temperature went through the roof and then the acute intervention team turned up and confiscated all my bedding, opened all the windows and I was absolutely freezing cold. They were trying to get my temperature down.

“I was put on IV Paracetamol and high flow oxygen.”

Mr Mann was transferred to intensive care.

“They put me in a CPAP Hood which I found to be very claustrophobic and very noisy, I had to have earplugs,” he said.

“I was in that hood for a week.

“Gradually my temperature came down and my stats went up.

“My biggest fear was that the CPAP Hood didn’t work and being ventilated because I knew the chances of survival, for someone my age, I am 72 now, wasn’t great.

“I will always remember how marvellous the nurses and the doctors were. They never left me alone and I remember feeling quite sort of safe.”