I woke up from a five-week Covid coma and met my son for the first time

A DAD meets his newborn son for the first time, five weeks after being in a Covid coma on the day of his wife’s birth.

Andrew Allen had only caught a glimpse of baby Oliver in the picture the nurse had left for him on the hospital bed.

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He was three weeks away from seeing his son for the first time in the hospital corridor.

Andrew, 32, said: “I moved wards because I was getting better and the consultant arranged for me to meet them in the hallway. That was the first time I met Oliver.

“It was overwhelming – not only did I see my son for the first time, but I also hadn’t seen my daughter at the time for about three and a half weeks.”

Andrew, of Bolton, started feeling unwell last July after an aerospace engineering company colleague tested positive for Covid-19.

Over the next ten days, he lost his sense of smell, vomited and had diarrhea but thought he might be at fault after a negative PCR test.

His wife Charlotte, 32, a retail worker, was hospitalized on July 27 and gave birth the next morning.

The increasingly sick Andrew was taken to the hospital a few hours later.

He said: “My mother called an ambulance and the paramedics listened to my breathing over the phone.

“I am not breathing properly. My mother described it as like a rattle. I was not well.

“My oxygen is very, very low and one of the worst they’ve ever seen.

“I remember I was trying to tell the medical staff that my son had been born. But I kept being told I had taken off my mask.”

Andrew was put on a ventilator and put into a medically induced coma. Then he tested positive for Covid.

Two weeks later, he woke up to a picture of his daughter Imogen, 5, and his baby.

Andrew, back to work but still recovering, said: “I knew I was going to miss my delivery with Covid, and I was in so much pain. I was very disappointed when I found out I missed out.”

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