{"id":15753,"date":"2019-11-21T11:06:57","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T10:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/?p=15753"},"modified":"2019-11-21T11:07:47","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T10:07:47","slug":"man-who-nearly-died-from-flu-speaks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/man-who-nearly-died-from-flu-speaks-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Who Nearly Died From Flu Speaks Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Flu nearly killed me last winter&#8221; says 47 year old Adam Blackman, as he urges people, of all ages, to get immunised against Influenza.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last winter, Adam Blackman did not bother getting a flue vaccine, which resulted in him spending more than a month in hospital after the virus triggered a life threatening asthma attack. Mr Blackman said he massively underestimated how dangerous the Flu really is, and told press that he had &#8220;learned the hard way&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>As explained on multiple health websites, the Flu lasts a week or so, (although you can be contagious for a period of time afterwards), but this week can be very dangerous for people in &#8220;high risk groups&#8221;, such as those with asthma and the elderly.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Blackman developed pneumonia and had a collapsed lung, which meant he had to be put into a medically induced coma for a week.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I have asthma and my body just couldn&#8217;t cope, I actually thought I was going to die before the ambulance got here. It was nearly catastrophic for me but my friends and family were also at risk. My brother-in-law who has asthma got ill shortly afterwards and ended up in hospital too. I learned the hard way that the flu can be life-threatening. I was hooked up to a life-support machine and put in isolation so that the flu wouldn&#8217;t spread. Given how contagious flu can be, I would urge everyone to get the flu vaccine so they don&#8217;t have to go through the hell I&#8217;ve been through. I&#8217;m not risking it again and have already got the flu vaccine. I am urging everyone with asthma to get it as soon as possible. It could save your life.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to the NHS, you can get the vaccine for free if you are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>65 or older<\/li>\n<li>pregnant<\/li>\n<li>someone with certain medical conditions, including asthma, heart disease or diabetes<\/li>\n<li>living in a long stay care facility or home<\/li>\n<li>the main carer for an elderly or disabled person<\/li>\n<li>a child aged two to 10<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mr Blackman was in one of these groups, and he chose not to get the jab. He nearly died before his sons first birthday because of this. It&#8217;s strongly recommended that you get one of these vaccines if you feel you need one. Speak to a pharmacist or your doctor if you have any questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Flu nearly killed me last winter&#8221; says 47 year old Adam Blackman, as he urges people, of all ages, to get immunised against Influenza. Last winter, Adam Blackman did not bother getting a flue vaccine, which resulted in him spending more than a month in hospital after the virus triggered a life threatening asthma attack&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":15754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,5],"tags":[171,990,71,1769,101,43],"class_list":["post-15753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-uk-news","tag-health","tag-health-news","tag-news","tag-true-stories","tag-uk","tag-uk-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15755,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15753\/revisions\/15755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}