A NURSE with coronavirus who rang her distraught family to say goodbye as she entered intensive care - in case she did not survive - was given a guard of honour by hospital staff and neighbours when she was discharged this week.

Stephanie Needs spent 21 days in intensive care at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny last month, after falling ill late in April.

The grandmother-of-six, from Pontypool, a nurse at St Woolos Hospital in Newport, was given a 50 per cent chance of survival, but pulled through with the help of ventilator care and a video featuring her children and other family members.

“She became unwell after contracting the virus due to her job,” said son Gareth Needs, whose dad Vincent also spent time in hospital with coronavirus.

While isolating at home, Ms Needs rang her GP on April 29 complaining of breathlessness.

“She couldn’t breathe, so the GP kept her on the phone whole he was ringing the ambulance at the same time,” said Gareth, who took the heartbreaking call from his mum five days after she was admitted to Nevill Hall.

“I will never forget it. It was 1.15pm and we had a video call where she was saying goodbye to us, that she was going into intensive care," he said.

"She was saying goodbye just in case she did not make it.

“I was just parked outside, three kids in the back with my partner.

“I was just shaking; I didn’t know what to do.

“All I was thinking was, ‘is this the last time I am going to speak to my mother?’

“She was saying she loved us all but we kept saying this not goodbye, that we will see her on the other end.

“We just told her not to give up, to keep fighting, that this isn’t the last time we were going to see her.”

Ms Needs was then put on a ventilator and was unresponsive when Gareth and his family made daily video calls.

“She just lay there; it was so hard,” he said, adding that after a few days, a doctor explained that it was 50:50 whether she would survive.

“He said he couldn’t give us false hope, that he had to be honest with us.”

But after Ms Needs was given a tracheotomy, hope began to flower.

“On the 17th day she started opening her eyes on the video call, she was listening to us and she could hear us,” said Gareth.

It was then that he created a 20-minute video to show his mum the next day.

“I got some pictures and messages of support together from the whole family. My sisters were also singing in it, too,” he said.

A few days later, she started to show signs of recovery.

“She came completely off the ventilator on day 19. She said she told the nurses that after seeing the video she felt she need to get into shape and get home to her family," said Gareth.

“Two days after being taken off the ventilator, she came out of intensive care.”

Her son says the tracheotomy put her “in the right direction of recovering” but that the video “really whacked her up the backside”.

Ms Needs came home last Tuesday to a guard of honour from her street - but not before she was greeted with “cuddles” by her family when she left the hospital.

“We were just full of emotions, we had happy tears," said Gareth.

“It was me my sister, my mum’s mum, the kids, my partner, it was just tears - the nursing staff gave her a standing ovation when she was coming out

“I can’t thank the staff at Nevill Hall enough. I owe them a debt to life because they have saved my mother.”

Just a month earlier, Gareth's father faced a similarly heart-rendering experience with his father.

Vincent Needs, 57, a security guard in the Royal Gwent Hospital, was rushed to the same hospital he works at in late March.

“He felt unwell and self-isolated and developed a cough, high temperature and felt very achy," said Gareth.

“He was deteriorating, and he became really bad. His current partner’s daughter came to his flat and they found him over the bed breathless, so they rang 999.”

“He tested positive for Covid-19 and contracted double pneumonia.”

Gareth’s dad was “just hours” from going into intensive care.

“But he managed to fight it himself, his attitude was, ‘It is not going to beat me’," he said.

“He started to show positive signs before they were going to take him into ICU, so they decided not to.”

“He beat it and came back home after six days.

“Now he is back in work.”