A few years ago, I met a man on the internet named Craig. Like me, Craig was a prepper, and Craig and I were in many of the same prepper groups on the web. He runs several prepping Facebook groups, including the 365Survive network of groups and pages. Some of these groups include Prepperlinks and SHTF medics. (I encourage you to check out both. LOTS of great info and articles are posted in these groups daily!)
After a while, I was helping Craig with some of those pages, and we became friends.
Over the past few months, more and more Corona-Virus information was being released in our prep groups. It seemed to dominate the topic of discussion in these groups, and understandably so. Then few weeks ago, Craig told me that he had been diagnosed with Covid-19. I was not shocked, though a bit surprised. For a few days, it certainly had many in the group worried.
Fortunately, Craig is pulling through. I thought it would interesting and informative to ask Craig about having this virus, both as a former Royal Marine, and as a prepper. So I did a little informal email interview with Craig. Enjoy!
Can you give us a little background information on yourself, and how you got into prepping?
My background is that I was a Royal Navy Commando Medic with the Royal Marine Commandos as well as a Search and Rescue Medic. Unfortunately my career was cut short due to injuries I received while in service. So I am now retired and miss it.
I was probably a prepper before I knew of such a thing. In Scotland during the 1970s when we had the 3 day working week, with the fuel strikes and the rotating power cuts, my mum use to put extra food tins away. She said these were not to be touched, they are for a rainy day. At the age of 7 or 8, I did not know what that meant.
But when in the military I was in a position to see what was happening around the world. Both on deployment and on the news. I too started putting cans of food away for “a rainy day”. Eventually with the internet becoming more accessible, I found out that I was actually a prepper.
My next question: Do you kind of know how you got corona-virus? If so do you mind sharing that with us? And what was it like for the first several days that you had it.
I don’t know how I contracted corona-virus. Being a medic, I was primed to look for the symptoms that have been published, but none of them were present.
I started to get a scratchy throat which became more painful (like swallowing glass and razor blades). I didn’t have a temperature, so I just thought it was a bout of laryngitis. But then I had chest pain and breathing got harder. When the pain started radiating, I knew it wasn’t right. So just before midnight I called our medical non-emergency number. After a short discussion and questions about this or that symptoms, they sent me to the ER for medical service at one of the city hospitals.
After arrival and book in, due to the prospect of having an highly infectious virus, they send me back out to my car to wait. I would receive a call on my mobile phone to come into the hospital and see the doctor.