A supernurse with 56 years’ experience made a remarkable return to work after six weeks in a coma.
Rod Morris, 72, specialises in supporting vulnerable children and young people with mental illnesses.
But he faced his own personal health battle when he collapsed in May 2020.
Rod was diagnosed with sepsis and pneumonia.
A nodule on his lung was identified as cancerous and his leg muscles wasted away during months in a hospital bed. As Covid peaked he was put into a coma at Middlesbrough James Cook Hospital.
It took Rod, a dad of seven and grandad of 11, over a year to recover. But the divorcee of Redcar, North Yorks, is now fit enough to be back on duty.
Back at the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys Trust, based in Middlesbrough, he said: “I am a warrior, a fighter. I am going to carry on – no surrender.”
Rod’s ambition is to chalk up 60 years with the NHS – retiring at 76.
His daughter Joanna Morris, 42, of Stockton, Co Durham, said: “The fact he’s recovered as well as he has from such grave illness is incredible but that’s just the kind of fighter he is.”