TV presenter Wendy Turner Webster has revealed she was given 48 hours to live after falling ill with Covid. But she believes the traumatic ordeal cured her of life-long severe depression.
As Wendy, 54, lay seriously ill in her hospital bed, she says she experienced an epiphany that made her re-evaluate her entire life.
Speaking for the first time about the episode, she says: “Covid nearly killed me and then it saved my life.
“I remember lying in my hospital bed and opening my eyes and there was white light everywhere. I sat up and my whole life changed.
“Before, I often couldn’t see any point to life, yet everything suddenly made sense. It was like a light switch had turned on.
“I drew a mental picture of a line in the sand, so that with my depression, what has passed has passed and going forward my life had just started again.”
The ex-Pet Rescue presenter, who is married to actor Gary Webster, has suffered from depression since childhood, exacerbated by the death of her middle sister Ruth when Wendy was 11, and an abusive past marriage.
She was put on the maximum dose of anti-depressants, but after Gary had a heart attack and they ended up bankrupt, homeless and in debt, after a business he had worked on failed to pay him, Wendy’s depression worsened.
She recalls: “At times my depression was so bad I wouldn’t go out, because I thought if I went near a railway line I wouldn’t come back.
“Now those thoughts are a million miles away. Thanks to Covid, I’ve finally made sense of life. I worry less, nothing feels as bad.”
Wendy, sister of TV presenter Anthea Turner, fell ill with Covid in January 2021.
That month Gary’s mum died from the virus while he was seriously ill. Their eldest son Jack, 22, caught it and Wendy fell ill.
Wendy, who has had both doses of the vaccine and a booster, recalls: “After three days it hit me like a thunderbolt, 24 hours later my breathing deteriorated badly. I’ve had pneumonia six times and recognised the crackle.
“The doctor sent antibiotics but over two days the pain worsened.
“The doctor sent an oxygen monitor. I was told if my oxygen level got to 92, we must call an ambulance. The first time I tested it was 92 and it fell to the low 80s. I realised if I didn’t get to hospital I’d die.”
She was put on oxygen, and diagnosed with Covid and bacterial pneumonia.
Wendy says: “Doctors told me if I didn’t start to improve overnight, I’d be put on a ventilator. They said if I hadn’t gone into hospital when I did, I’d have died within 48 hours.”
It was three days into her stay that she experienced her epiphany. An atheist, she does not believe she had a religious experience.
She says: “The counsellor I had been talking to for my depression said most people who go through a trauma have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But I had Post Traumatic Growth. You can go into a plunge or some people, like me, view it as the first day of the rest of their life.”
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Wendy, who lives in West London with former Minder star Gary and their sons Jack and Freddie, spent 10 days in hospital and she was bedridden for six weeks after returning home.
“It was four months before I left the house,” she says. She has been left with Long Covid. Another symptom has been severe reactive arthritis. And Wendy has been hit with more tragedy recently too, with the death of her mum, Jean, at the age of 91.
But Wendy and Gary have picked themselves up financially. He toured with Britt Ekland in a theatre production of The Cat and the Canary.
Wendy is filming a new documentary series for Together TV and My5, called Wendy Turner’s Viva The Farm Animals, filming undercover with vegan animal rights charity Viva!
She says: “I feel anything is achievable. Nearly losing my life has given me back the rest of my life.”
- Learn more about Wendy’s life at wendyturnerwebster.com
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