'I could have died': Cork doctor, 23, recalls scary Covid-19 experience

Ivan Hayes, consultant intensivist and critical care director at CUH, Owen O’Flynn, a 23 year old trainee doctor who spent time in CUH ICU as a patient with Covid-19, and Corinna Sadlier, consultant in infectious diseases at Cork University Hospital launch the National Covid Research and Scientific Meeting. Picture: Gerard McCarthy

A young doctor who was treated for Covid-19 in the intensive care unit at Cork University Hospital says he will never know how he contracted the virus.

Dr Owen O’Flynn, 23, from Bantry, Co Cork, was very fit before he got sick. He has recovered but is still on medication for his heart.

After being admitted to CUH where he was working at the time he was swabbed for Covid-19 three times and each time it was not detected.

He was eventually found to be antibody positive, suggesting that it took four to six weeks post-infection for his body to develop antibodies.

The doctor who spent eight weeks in CUH believes he contracted the virus sometime in late March and a post-viral syndrome resulted in him being hospitalised.

It is most likely that he was suffering from a Kawasaki related disease when he was admitted to the CUH’s intensive care unit in May.

In just a few hours his lungs had gone into acute respiratory distress and his heart function was only a third of what it should be.

He was scared when he was taken to the ICU because his deterioration was so quick and towards the end of the week he knew his heart was failing.

“I remember trying to stay strong while phoning home every evening, sometimes struggling to complete a sentence with the shortness of breath,” he said.

He does not know if he has mentally recovered from his illness and remains fearful that his heart could fail in the future.

I know that on any given day in the ICU I could have died and it is very tough to live with that knowledge.

People can watch Dr O’Flynn tell his story via Zoom during the National Covid Research and Scientific Meeting on Saturday if they pre-register for the free event on http://bit.ly/nationalcovidconf.

The conference, hosted by the Intensive Care Society, the Joint Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine of Ireland, and the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland coincides with a charity cycle by ICU staff from all over Ireland to Dublin.

The chief organiser of the ICU 4 U Charity Cycle, Dr Patrick Seigne, an intensive care specialist at CUH, said many ICU staff were uncomfortable with being put up on a pedestal during the public health crisis and want the put the focus on patients and charities.

Money raised by the charity cycle will be donated to four charities particularly affected by the Covid-19 crisis.