A 'fit and healthy' mum who died after contracting covid warned she "might not make it."
Karen Hobbs contracted the virus just days after Christmas 2020. Her family have now shared their story with WalesOnline in the wake of the Downing Street party scandals.
Having followed restrictions closely and rarely leaving the house since the start of the pandemic, the mum, from Cardiff, had plans to enjoy the festive period and the new year ahead.
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But the former EasyJet air stewardess fell ill with the virus just a week before Christmas and was taken to hospital on December 27, 2020.
Despite previously being "fit and healthy", the mum's condition quickly deteriorated and the decision was made to put her into an induced coma.
Karen rarely left the house during the pandemic and it is unclear how she caught the virus.
Known as a "beautiful" and loving mother, Karen sadly suffered a cardiac arrest and died on January 19 in an induced coma, weeks after testing positive for coronavirus.
Early last year, ECHO reported on the final words from the 40-year-old posted on Facebook before she died after she had regularly posted updates of her time in hospital.
With tight restriction in place at the time of Karen's death, it meant her heartbroken family were unable to say goodbye before she was placed into the induced coma that she never woke from.
A year on, Karen's sister, Rachel, from Pentwyn in Cardiff, says the family is still coming to terms with what happened, after their lives were changed forever in just a matter of weeks.
Rachel told WalesOnline : "The past year has been a bit of a blur. It feels like it's gone really quickly, but so many things have happened in that time, so many changes have been made.
"We all miss her so much, and we're reminded of her and what happened to her every day. We have coped well, but the thought of her is there when you wake up and it's still there when you go to sleep.
"We just didn't expect it at all - we really thought she was going to get better."
Karen "absolutely adored" her five children, Dylan, Niamh, Amelia, Sam and Olivia, which she had with her former partner Pete. The eldest, Dylan, was only 14 years old when she died, while the youngest, Olivia, was just four.
Rachel added: "They've coped really well in the circumstances. She would be so proud of them. The eldest ones understand what happened, and the youngest, she knows that Mummy is in heaven now."
Karen was just 40 when she died, and her passing is particularly difficult for the family to process after she stuck to lockdown rules rigidly, and would rarely venture outside of her home when the pandemic began.
Rachel said: "She wouldn't go out anywhere - she might go to the school and back but other than that, she would be back at the house. Most of her shopping she'd do online, and during lockdown I would stand outside her house and talk to her through the window.
"Even when we were outside in the garden, she would stand quite far away from me. She followed the rules really closely."
Given her strictness regarding following the rules put in place by the government, it was a shock to everyone when Karen began to experience flu-like symptoms in the week leading up to Christmas.
Her symptoms slowly started to worsen and left her confined to her bed on Christmas Day as she waited for a PCR test.
While her condition seemed to improve on Boxing Day as she "had a chat and a laugh" with her family - the following day saw the mum admitted to hospital as she struggled for breath.
Rachel said: "She was on the floor, coughing and coughing. She was really struggling and could barely breathe, or manage it to the car. It was awful, the worst thing I've ever witnessed probably.
"But she was sent home that night - I can't remember the reasons why now, but she was only back home for a couple of hours. We had to phone an ambulance then as she couldn't breathe again."
Having been rushed to the University Hospital of Wales, Karen was placed in intensive care as she continued to battle the virus.
Her temperature soared to the point where nurses covered her in wet towels to cool her down, while she was also placed on a CPAP machine, which couldn't stop her problem breathing.
Despite this, Karen was able to keep in contact with her anxious family by phone, and updated her friends on her condition on Facebook, with her statuses giving a haunting insight into life in an intensive care unit.
One post, made the day after she was admitted to hospital, reads: "Well, I got sent home from hospital last night only to have to ring an ambulance as I couldn't breathe again so back in hospital...it's fair to say Covid has well and truly kicked my butt!"
Another, posted two days later, adds: "The lady in the bed opposite me has just died in front of me - from Covid. Poor, poor lady, the nurses worked so hard to get her back but she couldn't be helped. Let that serve as a warning to anyone who still thinks it's okay to break the rules."
On New Year's Eve, Karen described how she was "struggling to reply" to people's well wishes, adding: "I can't manage to keep sitting and texting."
But, while Rachel, Pete and the children knew that she was growing too tired to message them, it wasn't until a devastating update less than a week into her hospital stay that they realised just how serious her condition was.
The update didn't come from the hospital, however - as Karen posted one final heartbreaking Facebook status.
The Facebook post read: "Being placed into an [induced] coma and warned that I might not make it. Please everyone pray for me that I wake from this and come home to my kids. Terrified is not the word!"
The news stunned the family, who hadn't received a call from the hospital updating them on the decision. Rachel, Pete and the five children had been unable to say anything to Karen before she was induced.
On January 12, they were called into the hospital, where a consultant broke the terrible news to them.
Rachel said: "He told us that she was very ill. She had multiple organ failure, everything was slowly shutting down. He said that the doctors thought she was going to die, and that we would have to prepare for the worst.
"We couldn't believe it. We had seen her when she was in the coma, but we didn't say goodbye, because I didn't really think that it would be the last time we saw her.
"Before that, the doctors had said she could die, but even then, we thought she was going to be alright, even if it was going to take a long time for her to get better."
On the evening of January 19, Rachel got the call she had been dreading, telling her that her sister had passed away after going into cardiac arrest.
In the space of a month, everything had changed for those closest to Karen, who had seen for themselves the devastating effect of the virus that has now claimed over 150,000 lives in the UK alone.
But there was to be more heartbreak, as lockdown restrictions meant they couldn't see her again, even in the funeral home, while limits were also placed on the number of people attending her funeral.
Karen's family, like so many others who have lost loved ones to the virus, were robbed of their last opportunity to say goodbye.
Rachel added: "It's like she's gone on holiday and never come back."
One year on, Karen's family are adjusting to life without her - but have recently been served a bitter pill to swallow.
Allegations of parties taking place in Downing Street have dominated headlines in recent weeks, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and top politicians accused of breaking the very rules that they set to attend social events that encouraged them to 'bring their own booze'.
These are the same rules that prevented families, such as Karen's, from being with their loved ones as they passed away, or from having more than 30 people at their funeral.
As Karen's condition began to worsen at home, Westminster aides were laughing about an alleged Christmas party that had taken place in Downing Street just days before, at which, by their own admission, there was "no social distancing".
With the allegations continuing to pile up, Rachel knows just how her sister would react were she still alive today.
Rachel added: "She'd go absolutely mad. She had quite a lot to say about them at the best of times, but this - oh, she would have hated this. She followed the rules so closely, and yet the people who are setting them think they can just break them and get away with it.
"It's incredibly difficult to accept, and it makes me so angry. Knowing that I never got to say goodbye to my sister and she never got to say goodbye to the children that she loved so much, all the while these rules were being ignored in Downing Street, it's heartbreaking.
"It's really rubbing salt into the wound, and it just makes you think how unfair this all is. It's the ultimate insult."
However Rachel is keen not to let the injustice of the situation tarnish the family's memories of Karen, who she said was "absolutely adored" by her children.
She said: "She said it as it was, she wasn't afraid to speak her mind. Karen wasn't quiet, but she was reserved - she used to say to me that she couldn't really stand people! But she was very kind and caring.
"She was a brilliant mum and incredibly devoted. She would do so much with them - drawing, colouring, reading them books, she was very hands on.
"Even if she was struggling with something, she wouldn't want to bother people with it - she would want to do things herself and was very independent in that way.
"More than anything, she loved her children, and they loved her so much too. They miss her a lot, and we do talk about her now. I've got some recordings of her voice and I play it for them sometimes, to make them laugh and smile.
"It's still really hard knowing that she's gone, but I want them to remember her, and all the good memories that they have."
