A BABY boy, aged just seven months, was rushed to hospital gasping for air after he caught Covid-19 from his infected parents.
Bonnie Saunders and Alan James frantically called 999 when their son’s temperature soared and he began struggling to breathe.
Bonnie, who works as a nurse at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen had only just gone back to work after maternity leave when she caught the virus.
And not long after she fell ill, her fiancé and Jack’s dad, Alan, also tested positive.
The pair said they had similar symptoms – a cough, temperature, flu-like symptoms, but were relieved that the children were well.
The couple admitted they were lulled into a false sense of security and didn’t think it was likely the children would catch the virus due to their age and health – but they were wrong.
Jack developed a cough and a raging fever, prompting Bonnie and Alan to get a Covid-19 test, which came back positive.
Reliving the family’s ordeal, Alan told Wales Online said: “On Monday night he started to wheeze heavily and he was really struggling to breathe. He was gasping for air.”
“I thought he would be OK because you don’t often hear of young children having it, or becoming ill with it, so the message always seems to be that young people don’t really get affected by coronavirus,” he said.
“Because of what I had read I was more concerned about Bonnie or myself getting it, so it was really shocking to see how it took hold of Jack and just how rapidly he went down with it.”
They rang for an ambulance and Jack travelled with Bonnie to the hospital where he was treated with steroids and given oxygen to help him breathe.
Miraculously, Jack is now “on the mend” after he spent a day and a night in hospital.
Alan, who described himself as “reasonably fit”, said the virus knocked him back and even after a week of battling the virus he still feels unwell.
He said that he and his son are both gradually getting better, but Bonnie’s recovery has been much quicker – which he puts down to her having the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine before she fell ill.
Patients only have 95 per cent immunity from the virus seven days after their second jab.
