When the pandemic hit last March, Emily Petersen (pictured above in her nurse uniform, before the pandemic), usually a sister on surgical ward Ocean B, volunteered to support our team in intensive care, despite having no experience in that area.

She clearly remembers the fish out of water feeling she had on her first day, managing four Covid patients alongside a newly qualified intensive care nurse.

Her confidence was boosted when she was able to what she does best, providing bedside nursing care for patient Micky Miller.

Emily, 26, said: “He was the only patient who wasn’t on a ventilator so I could engage more with him and chat with him. His temperature was rising and he said he was tired and wanted to give up.

“I spent most of the day with him, filling gloves with ice so I could keep him cool, talking to him, and I suggested we call his family as I hoped that would help him get his fighting spirit back.”

She had no idea the difference that call, with wife Sandra and daughter, Megan, would make to them. It was the last time they spoke to Micky as the 61-year-old, who’d had cancer before contracting Covid-19, had to be intubated shortly after and later died.

Emily added: “I went straight home to bed, exhausted, after that shift. I woke up to loads of messages as Megan had posted a message looking for me on Facebook as she wanted to thank me.

“I messaged her back and it was nice that I could share with her conversations I’d had with her dad, like him telling me about her, and the family dog. She was so happy to hear it so afterwards, whenever I was on the Sky High Dependency Unit, where he was based, I would let her know and see if she wanted me to say anything to him. She asked me to play songs to him and I found it really emotional, one was ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. I would put them on my phone and have to leave the room.”

Emily, of Hornchurch, had built such a bond with the family that she joined Micky’s funeral procession, standing on the corner of Crow Lane, Romford, to wave him by. It was a special moment when Megan spotted her in her uniform.

Megan said: “I am eternally grateful to Emily and we can’t thank her enough. She took the time to help us say goodbye to my dad in the best possible way we could at the time and kept us updated with any news she had about him. Seeing her appear at my dad’s funeral procession was just amazing, it shows the impact my dad’s personality had on people.”

Emily’s dedication was recognised when she was awarded a ‘Boost for the Brave’ gift of a hamper by Ruth Dando, lead critical care nurse (Emily is pictured above, at home with her hamper).

Before being redeployed to intensive care, Emily had never even seen a ventilator, so never imagined spending 15 weeks there, following the first wave of Covid. Ahead of the second wave in November, she didn’t hesitate to return.

She has only just returned to her usual role and isn’t quite ready to let go of her news skills. Having completed her nursing competencies when working on intensive care, she plans to do overtime there to keep up her skills.

Working through the pandemic was also a personal challenge for Emily, whose mum, Carol, has severe asthma. As she didn’t want to put her mum at risk, she started off staying in a hotel, before luckily being able to live in the empty flat of a family friend.

She added: “It was very hard going ‘home’ after a shift but having nothing familiar around me. My mum was really supportive and even got involved in raising money for our charity to fund boxes of toiletries for nurses like me who weren’t able to stay at home.

“I volunteered to work in intensive care as I felt it was the right thing to do and the team were so supportive I was really sad to leave. I see friends my age keen to get back to the pub now restrictions are lifting, but I am a bit cautious, given what I’ve seen. I’m hoping for a bit of normality to return and for us to find a new normal, I just hope everyone is sensible.”