'I was given half an hour to call loved ones': Barra Fitzgibbon's covid-set play

Patient:Soldier tells of Fitzgibbon's harrowing experience in the early stages of the pandemic 

Katherine White in Patient: Soldier, a covid tale coming the Cork Arts Theatre as part of its nationwide tour. 

“I think you’re going to be a statistic,” said a paramedic to Irish man, Barra Fitzgibbon, in a London hospital where he was admitted with symptoms of covid in March 2020. 

The paramedic was dressed “like an astronaut” says Fitzgibbon. Fortunately, he didn’t become the kind of statistic the paramedic had in mind but was the first covid ICU survivor in the UK.