Coronavirus: Watch the moment an NHS worker is reunited with her daughters after nine weeks
Written by News on 03/06/2020
A heartwarming video of an NHS worker being reunited with her young daughters after nine weeks apart has gone viral.
Suzie Vaughan, 43, spent more than two months away from her daughters Hettie, seven, and Bella, nine, while she worked on a coronavirus ward.
In the video, she is seen sneaking up behind her children, who had been staying with her sister Charlotte.
The children had been watching a laptop when their mother asked from behind them: “What are you watching?”
When they realised who it was, the children turned around and screamed “Mummy!” before the three embraced.
Ms Vaughan, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, told Sky News: “The decision to send the girls away was to keep them safe because I didn’t know what I was going to be bringing home.
“It’s been really difficult. It’s been emotionally and physically exhausting.”
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She even had to spend her birthday apart from her daughters, instead working a 12-hour shift in an intensive care unit.
“I definitely had my moments,” she said.
“But keeping in touch with the girls every day, FaceTiming, text messages saying ‘good morning mummy’, ‘goodnight mummy’, ‘how’s your day been’ just kept me going.”
Speaking from the family’s garden, Hettie said: “It was really hard not seeing Mummy
“Bella always said ‘can we teleport to you?’ but it never worked.”
The family will now spend the next week together before the girls return to school.
“I was really proud of Mummy but we were homesick,” added Bella.
Ms Vaughan said there are still COVID-19 patients coming in to the hospital but it is not as bad as it was and she wears full PPE.
“I just kept thinking of the girls, I wanted to keep them safe. And I was able to put more hours in at work and help the patients at work who needed it,” she said.
She also urged the public to continue following lockdown rules.
“There are so many people making sacrifices and until you experience it yourself you don’t always appreciate what has gone out,” she said.
“To see people suffer the way I have had to see patients suffer, I wish people could see the other side of it and think of other people.”
Tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm, Dermot Murnaghan will be hosting After The Pandemic: Our New World – a special live programme about what our world will be like once the pandemic is over.
Thursday’s programme will include an exclusive interview with Prince Charles.
(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Watch the moment an NHS worker is reunited with her daughters after nine weeks