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Linda Lusardi says coronavirus symptoms were so severe she wanted to die

Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images for Make-A-Wish Foundation
Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images for Make-A-Wish Foundation

Former glamour model Linda Lusardi has opened up on her coronavirus diagnosis and said the symptoms were so severe she wanted to die.

The Dancing On Ice star, 61, contracted the illness alongside husband Sam Kane and spent 10 days in hospital suffering from fever, chronic chest pains and vomiting.

Lusardi told The Sun: “It got to the stage where both of us were praying we wouldn’t wake up because it was so bad.”

The veteran model told the newspaper she fell ill at home and her son Jack, 20, called 999 and she and Kane were hooked up to oxygen and taken to hospital in the same ambulance.

Ilness: Lusardi's husband Sam Kane was also hospitalised (Getty Images)
Ilness: Lusardi's husband Sam Kane was also hospitalised (Getty Images)

She tested positive for Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Kane’s condition improved but Lusardi’s worsened, she told The Sun, and a doctor said he did not know if she would pull through.

She added: “I said to him, ‘Am I going to make this?’ and he said, ‘You’re 61, I can’t guarantee anything. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here’.

“To hear that was just dreadful and I just burst into tears. I text Sam and they wheeled him up to me.”

The couple are now recovering at home.

Lusardi previously urged fans to follow expert advice on self-isolation to halt the spread of coronavirus.

“Please take care of yourselves, loved ones and each other,” she said.

Lusardi, whose TV appearances include Emmerdale, Dancing On Ice and Loose Women, found fame in the 1970s and 80s, and in a 2005 poll was voted the UK’s most popular Page 3 girl ever.

Additional reporting by Press Association

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