A Saltcoats man has beaten COVID-19 and is now on the road to recovery, after spending 35 days hooked up to a ventilator.

Francie Conn’s family were thrilled to learn that the 65-year-old husband, father, and grandfather was to be moved from the ICU ward at Crosshouse Hospital where he had spent 40 days battling for his life.

The engineering buyer from Saltcoats was clapped out of the ICU to a high dependency ward where staff will stay pay close attention to him, but he is well and truly on the way back from what appeared to be a hopeless situation. 

Rachel Conn, Francie’s 27-year-old daughter said: “The main thing we want to come out of this is a positive story during the pandemic, to give other families hope, that’s what we wanted when dad was at his worst, to know that you can come out the other side, that you can beat it, there wasn’t many positive stories around when we were searching for some reassurance and dad is just an example that it can be done.”

On March 23 Francie came down with a high fever which then developed into a nasty, vomit inducing cough. He was weak and breathless as he spent nine days at home in bed trying to fight off the coronavirus.

It all got too much when Francie told the family that he felt he couldn’t go on like that for much longer. They called NHS 24 who asked for him to come in for testing. On April 1, Francie was dropped off at Crosshouse Hospital by his children, who passed on the duty of care to the amazing NHS staff.

Rachel said: “We knew he was really ill, but until they started running tests we didn’t truly know how unwell he was. A doctor told us over a buzzer system ‘I know it’s not ideal telling you like this, but your dad is very unwell and he’s going to need a lot of care.’ It was absolutely heartbreaking, he’s never been in hospital in his life, never needed to take any medication for anything, he was healthy, it was just horrendous.”

On April 3 after showing no signs of improvement the decision was taken to admit Francie into intensive care. He was put into an induced coma and was connected to a ventilator. He spent 17 days in the coma, during which time his survival was touch and go. He suffered heart problems, kidney failure and a bacterial infection as well.

Despite the dire outlook, Francie began to improve and on April 29 he began weaning off of the life-saving ventilator. He was breathing independently by May 9. He was tested again for the virus, which returned a negative result and days later he was being moved from the ICU to a recovery ward.

On the return of her dad to better health, Rachel said: “It was amazing to speak to him again now that he’s back talking, he’s sounding so much stronger, he just sounds like dad, like the guy he was when before he fell unwell.”

Rachel wished to pass on her dad’s message to all those who supported him in his moment of need: “He can’t thank the NHS staff enough, they’ve saved his life without them he wouldn’t be here. They’ve been our superheroes, our guardian angels, up at Crosshouse.

“He’s so humbled with the kind support and wishes he’s received from everybody, it’s been incredible the amount of people who have got in contact to wish him well.”