Wounded Guys and Girls Tell Us the Stories Behind Their Scars

Nell

“My scars were made whilst I was in a coma for 90 days. The scars on my face, neck and groin are there because I was on life support known as ECMO - my lungs had been devastated by a necrotising pneumonia and they had to stop me breathing - the ECMO oxygenated my blood and kept me alive for 66 days. The other round scars on my body are from chest drains because both my lungs had collapsed and infection and air was trapped in my chest cavity. The scar on my back is from surgery I had because my chest had filled with so much blood that it was impacting my heart. All this began when I went on a school trip to the Ardeche in France. I left on the 26th June with the school and came home on the 24th October. I was in a French hospital in Montpellier, in Intensive care all that time. They never gave up on me and fought with me. My scars are the map of my survival and I’m very proud of them. They give me strength and individuality. It’s very rare for people to survive this infection - and in actual fact I survived two, because after the first pneumonia, I suffered a second infection - hospital born MRSA and went into multiple organ failure. We all fought on. I have a small scar on my throat where I had a tracheostomy - it was strange to have no voice when I woke up, but I wasn’t afraid - I only believed.”