Bed No. 1

Much more than one man's battle with COVID-19. This story shines a light on the lives of the people who saved Laurence Penn, a fifty-four-year-old man who is placed into a coma in bed number one on ICU to help him fight the deadly virus sweeping the globe from 2020.

We get a front-line view of the challenges of working in healthcare during a pandemic and meet the research nurses and healthcare team who played a key role in the battle against COVID-19 and how the patients' paperwork broke their hearts.

As Laurence battles his way back to consciousness, he is convinced he is being held captive in Wales, craves coffee and is confused as heck. Laurence slowly shakes off his coma. We follow his hospital recovery from being paralysed, to walking again with the help of some very shitty shoes, to being reunited with his PPE protected wife.

His memoir follows his journey from being a stressed-out corporate commuter, to a man who has found a new gratitude for life and for the people who fight so hard for others to keep living. During the book, Laurence pieces together the story of what happened to him for the thirty-six days of darkness with accounts from his family and the healthcare professionals whose expertise gave him back his life and helped him on the road to fitness. In doing so, he truly learns the value of home and what it means to be among those who, through astonishing care and commitment, were able to get him back there.

We learn of his determination to be fitter than he was pre-Covid and the help he received from the hospital and his friends and his continuing fundraising to help hospitals nationwide.