Britain's longest Covid sufferer gives Kate Garraway a message of hope
Cab driver Ali Sakallioglu spent 222 days in hospital and care battling Covid. His family were told three times he was going to die.He is now back home with his family.
He joined GMB with his two daughters to talk about being Britain's longest Covid sufferer and he offered a message of hope to Kate Garraway, whose husband Derek Draper has been in hospital since April.
Ali's ordeal began when he fell ill with symptoms including a high temperature and a loss of taste and smell at the end of March.
He has type 1 diabetes and was told to self-isolate when he called 111. Within days his condition deteriorated and he was rushed to hospital in South London in an ambulance and put on a ventilator.
Four days later he had a heart attack and was taken to King's College Hospital and put into an induced coma which he did not out of for three months.
Ali said he thought he had only been asleep for one day when he woke up: "It was only when my daughter said to me I'd been in a coma for three months I was in shock. At that time I couldn't even speak because I was still on a ventilator."
After medics told his family they didn't think he would survive on three separate occasions, Ali is now back with his family and walking using a stick.
In total he spent 186 days in hospital and a further 39 in a nursing home.
Ali offered a message of hope to Kate and her husband Derek as he remains in hospital fighting the effects of Covid after over six months.
"They gave me zero chance to my daughters. There is always hope as long as he's breathing," Ali said.
"I watched the gardening show she did when I was in hospital a few weeks ago and it brought a tear to my eye because I thought to myself that my daughters were in the same situation. I hope that I give her hope that he will come through this.'