The man in the mask
Karen O’Reilly, 46, Darwen, Lancashire
Hooked up to a ventilator, the figure in the hospital bed was a sorry sight.
‘Oh Susan,’ I choked, sitting beside my big sister, then 44.
It was August 2017, and after being told that she’d been trapped in a house fire, I’d rushed to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.
She’d suffered so badly from smoke inhalation that doctors had placed her in an induced coma.
They weren’t sure that she’d survive.
I didn’t want to believe it. And as the hours passed with me at her bedside, my mind went back to the many happy memories we’d
