A FEISTY pensioner has beaten the odds after winning her battle against the coronavirus declaring: “You didn’t think a little virus was going to finish me off do you?”

Great-grandmother Dorothy Franklin contracted Covid-19 while she was in hospital having suffered from sepsis and a chest infection.

But the defiant pensioner overcame the virus which has claimed 260,000 lives worldwide and was allowed to return home on the day of her 93rd birthday.

Dorothy had been rushed to Broomfield Hospital, in Chelmsford, on March 21 after her daughter, Diane Gall, 60, found her unconscious in her home.

She was admitted to hospital where doctors diagnosed her with suspected sepsis and a chest infection.

But then the former seamstress contracted the potentially-fatal coronavirus while at the hospital.

Diane said: “We called an ambulance which arrived quickly and she was taken to Broomfield Hospital.

“My brother met me there but as I had seen her on the previous Wednesday, I was not allowed into A&E due to Covid-19.

“I sat in the car park for six hours awaiting news. They believed she had sepsis and a chest infection, she was very poorly.

“They had tested her for Covid-19 and we were told on the following Wednesday it was negative which was such a relief.

“Unfortunately, she took a turn for the worse on the Friday and was re-tested. She had caught Covid-19 whilst there.

“As a family, we were so distressed. At her age we didn’t think she would survive.”

But Dorothy, who lives at Hedingham Place independent living home in Sible Hedingham, did survive.

Diane said: “The greatest problem was getting through to the ward for updates. The telephone would ring for hours before someone would answer.

“We knew the pressure the staff were under with so many being admitted, but the stress and worry of not knowing her condition was unbelievable.”

Dorothy remained at the hospital for five weeks before eventually being moved to the Colne View care home in Halstead.

With three children, eight grandchildren and seven great grandchildren, Diane is happy Dorothy’s family will soon be able to see her again.

Diane added: “I was there to see the ambulance arrive and was able to wave to her through a ground-floor window.

“All I could do was cry, such a relief to see her face again.

“The doctors at Broomfield Hospital had assured me they would get her home for her 93rd birthday and they did.

“Colne View sent her home with a balloon and a beautiful birthday cake.

“Her smile said it all.

“Unfortunately as a family, we couldn’t celebrate her birthday with her, but we will as soon as the lockdown is over.

“Now Mum is home with four carers a day to help her recovery.

“Such determination and strength, her words to me were ‘You didn’t think a little virus was going to finish me off do you?’

“Typical of mum, always positive, she will dine out this for along while.”

Having spent so long in hospital, Dorothy has also missed the lockdown and is finding it difficult to come to terms with the measure.

Diane said: “She’s missed it and has no concept of what the lockdown is.

“The whole thing is completely alien to her. She tried to call the hairdressers for a haircut but I has to tell her that she can’t do that anymore.”

Dorothy was born in 1927, growing up in Holloway, London.

She was a teenager during the Second World War and moved away from London during the Blitz to Harpenden, in Hertfordshire, where she waited out the rest of the war.

She worked as a seamstress and then a secretary for the Ford Motor Company is London, but left the City to live closer to her daughter, Diane.