Tara Jane Langston, a 39-year-old healthy waitress who was diagnosed with the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, went viral after a harrowing video from her London hospital bed was posted and shared this month on social media warning others about the seriousness of the disease. The mother of two is now recovering at home.
After spending nine days at the hospital, of which three days were in the ICU, Langston returned home to be with her family on Mother’s Day, March 22.
Rasping, coughing, and visibly struggling for breath, Langston was taken to Hillingdon Hospital on Friday, March 13 and was formally diagnosed with the CCP virus on Sunday, March 15.
Pointing out her twin cannula and catheter, Langston said, “anyone [who] still smokes, put the cigarettes down, because I’m telling you now, you need your [expletive] lungs.” She reiterated her warning that taking chances meant “you’re going to end up here [in ICU].”
“It’s absolutely horrible and I wouldn’t want to go through anything like this ever again,” she told The Daily Mail. “I’d been ill for about five days before I was taken to hospital in an ambulance.”
Describing the virus’s effects on her respiratory system, Langston said it felt “like having glass in your lungs.” She further stressed that “every breath is a battle.” She was in such poor condition that the doctors initially told her that she would need to be intubated, and Langston recalls not remembering what that meant.
“When they explained to me I was going to be put to sleep and sedated, so that my body could fight this—because my body was exhausted—I just thought, ‘I’m never going to wake up,’” Langston told Good Morning Britain.
She further added, “‘I’m not going to see my girls grow up and I’m not going to wake up.’ It was very traumatic.”
Langston told the Daily Mail that most people in her social circles had the impression that the virus only affected the sick and elderly, not someone like herself who went to the gym and was healthy. Noting that other patients being intubated were well under the commonly cited high-risk age, Langston explained, “my reasoning behind doing that video was to warn that younger people are susceptible too.”
She further urged people, “My story should be a warning to others—you need to take this seriously.”
She also reiterated her warning to smokers to quit immediately. While noting “you’re all within your rights to do exactly what you want to do,” she emphasized, “you don’t appreciate your breath until it’s taken away [...] something as simple as breathing in air.”
