Boris Johnson thought he ‘might have carked it’ in intensive care

Former prime minister Boris Johnson believed he “might have carked it” when he was in intensive care with Covid without the “skills and experience” of his nurses, according to an extract of his memoir.

Mr Johnson spent several days in intensive care with Covid in April 2020.  In the extract of his Unleashed book published in the Daily Mail, he described not wanting to fall asleep on his first night in intensive care “partly in case I never woke up”.

He also recalled feeling “rotten” with “guilt” and “political embarrassment” in the days before he was admitted to hospital.

The nurses caring for Mr Johnson on his first night in intensive care were “Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal,” he recalled.

Following his release from hospital, the then prime minister spent some time at Chequers with his now-wife Carrie, and he recalled joining in with the clap for the NHS on a Thursday evening.

“I clapped with deep emotion because my lungs were telling me that I had been through something really pretty nasty, and that if it hadn’t been for Jenny and Luis, fiddling with those oxygen tubes all night with all their skill and experience, I think I might have carked it,” he wrote.

On his admission to ICU, Mr Johnson said he “started to doze, but didn’t want to sleep – partly in case I never woke up, or in case they decided to perform some stealthy tracheotomy without letting me know”.

He also described the days leading up to his hospital admission.

There were a number of days between Mr Johnson announcing he had tested positive for Covid at the end of March 2020 and going into hospital at the beginning of April, and he described himself as feeling “so rotten”.

“It wasn’t just the physical distress; it was the guilt, the political embarrassment of it all,” he said.

“I needed to be out there, leading the country from the front, sorting the PPE, fixing the care homes, driving the quest for a cure.”