'I was assaulted, spent months in coma - I woke up to Covid and my fiancée dead'

Nurse Jess was going about her everyday routine, walking back to her car after a late shift at work. Then she heard a voice behind her - the last thing she remembers before blacking out. She had been physically assaulted and knocked unconscious.

She woke up from a coma months later to find the globe engulfed in a pandemic, her city locked down, her fiancée tragically dead.

Jess found herself in an upside down world, where faces were covered with masks and loved ones had to keep their distance. The streets were barren as people were confined to their houses.

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Not only was Jess’ home a strange place, she woke up to the heartbreaking news that her partner had died while she was in the coma.

“I wasn’t sure I had woken up at all. As an experienced nurse, I knew something wasn’t right by the way the intensive care staff were behaving,” Jess, who wishes to remain anonymous, explained.

“I knew they weren’t telling me everything. They eventually explained what the Covid pandemic was and told me my fiancée had died.

“Once I was physically well enough, I was released into a world I didn’t know. I walked into Manchester city centre to get a taxi and it felt like a version of The Walking Dead. The streets were empty, and the air was silent, I didn’t think I was alive. I can’t explain how scared I was.”

Jess was ‘left alone in an alien world’ - and her mental health soon started spiralling down. And in the peak of the pandemic, she couldn’t get the support she needed.

“One minute I’d been in a job I love, engaged to my partner, and on my way home,” said Jess. “The next I’m left alone in an alien world that could