As Covid-19 sweeps across the world, Eyewitness examines another outbreak that captured the headlines a decade ago.

As Covid-19 sweeps across the world, Eyewitness examines another outbreak that captured the headlines a decade ago.

"Än hour later he died. It was so quick. Pretty traumatic."

In July 2009, Lou Lovegrove was a working as a bus driver in Christchurch.

"We assume that's where he got it from", his wife Julie Lovegrove said.

'It' was swine flu, otherwise known as Influenza A H1N1 PDM 2009: the pandemic virus that swept through New Zealand in 2009 and 2010.

The 54 year old came home from work feeling unwell.

"Ï didn't realise what it was. I thought it was a cold and he got sick" Mrs Lovegrove said.

She and the couple's two children also caught the virus but for them it manifested more like a common cold.

"We were fine but he just slowly got worse."

Mr Lovegrove, who used a machine for his sleep apnoea, was taken to hospital, put on a ventilator and then placed in an induced coma.

After a week hospital staff tried to bring him out but he slipped back into a coma and suffered a stroke.

Julie Lovegrove remembers feeling a mixture of emotions as her husband's health fluctuated wildly.

"To me it was just a blur."

She had to work but took her children to the hospital to see him every night.

"He looked as though he was getting better and then he didn't. It was just this roller coaster of getting better, no, yes, no, yes, no."

Lou had been in the hospital for a fortnight when the realisation came.

"He just wasn't coming out. I just knew."

"His whole body just collapsed basically. The virus ate his lungs. His internal organs slowly failed." Mrs Lovegrove said.

"They called me in and said 'His heart's going,' and they wanted to take him off life support.'"

Together Julie Lovegrove and her children made the devastating decision.

"We said 'Ýes.' Än hour later he died. It was so quick. Pretty traumatic."

It had been just over three weeks since he first came home sick.

Ministry of Health figures showed 49 New Zealanders died from swine flu in 2009. Lou Lovegrove was one of them

"No one saw that coming"

While deaths from a new virus were to be expected, the provenance and type of influenza were not.

Wellington Professor of Public Health and Epidemiologist, Michael Baker said health authorities had been long been anticipating a pandemic, just not this one…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details