As a baby, respiratory nurse Leanne Riddell's life was saved by the NHS, then decades later she saw a friend die of Covid during the early stages of the pandemic.
She loves her job and - now a ward sister - the Wallsend mum, 33, told ChronicleLive what it means to be a NHS worker, why looking after others means so much to her, and how losing a friend and fellow nurse to Covid hit hard and was "really scary". Speaking during the week of the NHS's 75th birthday, she said she was "so proud" to be part of the health service.
Leanne's life came full circle when she qualified as a nurse - 22 years after the NHS staff at the Royal Victoria Infirmary saved her life amid an epidemic of the potentially-lethal disease bronchiolitis in babies across the North. Darlington-born, when she fell ill she had to be sent to the RVI.
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Leanne said: "I was born in the November and then I was about three weeks old when I first took unwell. As Darlington couldn't take me, I was blue-lighted up to the RVI. I was really quite ill- it was touch and go. There was a spate of cases of babies in the North unwell about that time with bronchiolitis."
At the time, in the Sunday Sun, reporter Pauline Holt wrote: "This months-old girl, battling for breath in an intensive care unit, is one of hundreds struck down by a bug that can kill.
"Little Leanne is suffering from a kind of bronchitis which has spread like wildfire throughout the North in recent weeks."
Leanne's near-death experience as a tot is just one of the factors that has led to her own career in the NHS. She said: "For me I think I knew from a young age I didn't want a nine-to-five office job. To some degree I fell into nursing, I had friends doing it and it appealed. And also, my grandma had been quite unwell when I was around 15 and it was inspiring to see the people looking after her.
"I am so proud to help others. I look at the people we care for as though they are all my family and I care for them in the way I would want to be cared for. It's all about making a difference and helping people in their time of need."
Like everyone else in the NHS, working during Covid was traumatic, Leanne said. This was especially the case as her friend Rebecca Mack was heartbreakingly one of many NHS staff to die due to the pandemic.
Looking back at that time, Leanne said: " I'm now a ward sister in respiratory medicine. So of course our ward was very involved in those scary early days of Covid. It's something I hope I never have to go through again."
She explained that she had known Rebecca since their time as student nurses, and the pair had lived together. "We kept in touch after that," she added. "And when we lost her, I just couldn't believe what had happened.
"It hit really hard. Covid was quite a new thing - and then when I caught it later that year it was incredibly scary. Seeing it first-hand at work, Covid didn't care who you were or what you did."
