Fit and healthy young mum mum left in a coma fighting for her life after catching FLU

A FIT and healthy young healthcare worker was left in a coma and fighting for her life - after catching flu.

Doctors gave Laura Spacagna a 20 per cent chance of survival after her common flu progressed into a series of frightening and life-threatening complications.

The 32-year-old mum-of-one had been feeling unwell for two days before her GP diagnosed her with flu and sent her home with cough medicine and paracetamol.

But within 24 hours the flu had become potentially fatal - Laura was struggling to breathe and her fingers and lips had turned blue.

Previously fit and healthy Laura was rushed to Torbay Hospital A&E where she suffered from double pneumonia, her oxygen levels plummeted and organs failed.

The series of frightening complications forced doctors to place her into an induced coma for two weeks and transfer her to Papworth Hospital in Cambridge.

An ECMO machine kept Laura alive by pumping oxygen in her blood until she recovered from the deadly virus.

On Christmas morning, Laura was woken up from her coma surrounded by machines.

Since her ordeal in December 2014, Laura had to undergo intensive rehabilitation in order to walk again after her muscles wasted away and she lost a stone and a half.

Laura, of Torbay, Devon, said: "Everyone who is offered it should get the jab.

"If not to prevent yourself from getting the flu, to prevent spreading it to your loved ones or anyone in our care at the hospital - remember that the flu vaccine can save a life.

"I want to raise awareness to everyone to say that if you are offered the flu vaccine please take it because it doesn't matter what age you are or how fit and healthy you think you are.

"The fact that you are offered it is because you are at greater risk and I wouldn't want to see this happen to anyone else.

"I've only had my flu jab when I was pregnant with my daughter and I didn't have it that year.

"Maybe if I'd of had the flu jab I wouldn't of ended up the way that I did.

"I just thought I don't really get ill so I wouldn't normally have it."

Laura had worked in Torbay Hospital as a healthcare assistant for ten years before she contracted the virus, and had never heard of it affecting anyone so badly.

She first fell ill in December 2014 while she was on holiday in France with her family.

She said: "I just wasn't feeling right, I felt exhausted and had to return to our hotel room during the day to rest.

"I went to the doctors in the UK and she told me I had flu and to take ibuprofen and paracetamol, just to get me through and signed me off work for a week.

"I'm not normally ill and when I do get ill I just keep going.

"The following day I became really ill but I thought I just had really bad flu so I just carried on with it until I went to the toilet and I noticed my lips had gone blue.

"I was confused and I didn't really know what was going on.

"I remember being transferred to intensive care and they put a mask on me to try and help me breathe and it wasn't working, and that's all that I remember.

"All my organs were failing and they gave me a twenty per cent chance and they said to my family I might not make it.

"They woke me up on Christmas morning, I asked for my daughter first.

"It took me a while to come round and understand what had actually happened, I didn't understand why I was in hospital on Christmas day.

"I couldn't walk when I woke up, I had to learn to walk again and have physiotherapy.

"When I first woke up I couldn't walk, I had pins and needles in my feet and that sensation still hasn't gone.

"Those pictures don't seem real, it seems weird looking at them.

"My dad and my sister looked after my little girl, but she still gets worried now if I'm ill or even get a small cold, she remembers it."

Laura was discharged from hospital on January 5 last year but had to be looked after by her family at her parent's house as it was going to be a long, slow recovery ahead.

Laura's Mum, Jan, 59, is a Laparoscopic Nurse Practitioner at Torbay Hospital.

She said: "When we found out how seriously ill Laura was we were devastated, the whole family was devastated.

"Mylie, Laura's daughter, was only three years old at the time. We just couldn't believe what was happening and the thought of her not surviving.

"There was so much disruption to family life over the Christmas and the New Year period - we were told we shouldn't leave her as she was critical.

"My husband and other daughter looked after Mylie the whole time as I was at Laura's bedside with her fiancé, Torryn.

"Christmas Day… well it was the best present we could have ever wished for - Laura was off the ventilator and awake, it was just wonderful.

"The care given by every single person throughout Laura's treatment was outstanding and we are eternally grateful to them for Laura still being with us today."

Dr Rob Dyer, Medical Director of Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Laura's story clearly demonstrates how important it is for those eligible to receive the flu vaccination to vaccinate themselves.

"Flu can be incredibly serious and affect even the fittest and healthiest of people yet a lot of people assume that they will be fine and 'it's only flu'."

Public Health England estimated that an average 8,000 people die from flu in England each year. Some years that figure reaches 14,000.

Further information on the flu vaccination, and the specific groups of people who should have the vaccination, can be found on NHS Choices: www.nhs.uk

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