52-year-old Adam Fresco already said goodbye to his wife, Stacey, as doctors believed she would die of coronavirus within a ‘couple of hours.

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He desperately asked if there was anything they could try, so the leading doctor decided to offer one last way to save her – proning.

Medics would lay his wife on her stomach for 12 hours a day to try to improve her lung capacity and help drain the accumulated fluid in her lungs caused by pneumonia.

Mrs. Fresco’s health improved overnight and she gradually regained her strength. In less than two weeks, she was discharged from hospital.

NHS England guidance advises medics to use proning for patients with coronavirus in ICU. Officials also urged hospitals to consider placing patients in prone position before reaching intensive care for a better chance of survival.

Medics in the US, Portugal, and Italy say they are also relying on proning even if the patients are not severely ill. But the method also has its own risks and can be fatal.

Mr. Fresco, a photographer for the Daily Mail, wrote for The Times: “I remember asking if there was “anything weird or wacky” he had heard about, anything experimental that was working abroad. It was a desperate plea that I knew he couldn’t answer.

“The doctor, Dave, came back in and said there was one last thing he could try, something called “proning”, whereby the patient is placed on their stomach for about 12 hours.”

Doctors would make a decision on whether to use the method based on the patient’s health status.

“At the same time, the doctor warned there was a high probability that turning Stacey would lead to a fatal heart attack,” Mr. Fresco said.

Doctors will not be able to give CPR if a patient goes into cardiac arrest while on their stomach.

Despite the risks, medics and the family agreed and Mrs. Fresco was proned 12 hours a day.

“If I hadn’t asked about anything weird they could try; if the incredible Dr Dave hadn’t heard about proning… would she have made it?” Mr. Fresco expressed.

Proning has been used for decades for people with acute respiratory distress syndrome, a condition where the lungs can’t breathe in enough oxygen.

Doctors at Whipps Cross, where Mrs. Fresco was treated, only consider proning as a last resort.

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