Former prime minister Boris Johnson thought he 'might have carked it' in intensive care with Covid

Boris Johnson believed he "might have carked it" when he was in intensive care with Covid had it not been for the "skills and experience" of his nurses.

The former prime minister has written down his experience with the disease which left him in hospital near the start of the pandemic, in his memoir.

Mr Johnson spent several days in intensive care with Covid in April 2020. In the extract of his Unleashed book published in the Daily Mail.

READ MORE: The children with nowhere to call home

He also recalled feeling "rotten" with "guilt" and "political embarrassment" in the days before he was admitted to hospital.

The nurses caring for Mr Johnson on his first night in intensive care were "Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal," he recalled.

Following his release from hospital, the then prime minister spent some time at Chequers with his now-wife Carrie, and he recalled joining in with the clap for the NHS on a Thursday evening.

"I clapped with deep emotion because my lungs were telling me that I had been through something really pretty nasty, and that if it hadn't been for Jenny and Luis, fiddling with those oxygen tubes all night with all their skill and experience, I think I might have carked it," he wrote.

On his admission to ICU, Mr Johnson said he "started to doze, but didn't want to sleep partly in case I never woke up, or in case they decided to perform some stealthy tracheotomy without letting me know".

He also described the days leading up to his hospital admission. "It wasn't just the physical distress; it was the guilt, the political embarrassment of it all," he said.

"I needed to be out there, leading the country from the front, sorting the PPE, fixing the care homes, driving the quest for a cure."