‘I made a big mistake’: Tradie who beat Covid slams ‘stupid’ protesters

Construction worker Nathan Chellia, who was left gasping for breath in hospital battling Covid, has hit out at “stupid” protesters storming the city.

Gasping for breath with Covid-19, Nathan Chellia told doctors and nurses that if he had to be placed on life support he wanted it switched off after 24 hours.

Having spent months avoiding a Covid vaccination, the Hoppers Crossing construction worker suddenly had too much time to lie in hospital, worry about the worst and regret why he was so gravely ill.

“I’m thinking while I’m lying down, if I would have had one injection I wouldn’t have come to this point,” Mr Chellia said.

“I was guilty. I felt like I had made a big mistake.”

Nathan Challia was gasping for air in hospital.

After a horror fortnight in the Northern Hospital’s Covid ward, the 44-year-old father of two finally returned home on September 13.

But Mr Chellia now feels like he is watching a fresh nightmare unfold as construction industry colleagues rampage through Melbourne’s streets.

“I want to talk to them,” Mr Chellia told the Herald Sun.

“What they’re thinking at the moment is what I was thinking a month ago.

”I am screaming and yelling while I’m watching the TV because they are stupid.

“They don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know the reality of what’s happening.”

A health and safety officer at Box Hill’s Panorama construction site, Mr Chellia said he was in a room with a friend when a worker came in and shook their hands, but refused to put a mask on saying “he was superman and the virus couldn’t hurt him”.

When he woke with a sore throat on August 29, Mr Chellia sought a Covid test. The following day Mr Chellia, his friend and “superman” were confirmed as among the first Covid cases of a cluster that would quickly grow beyond 130.

Mr Challia says the doctors and nurses who treated him felt like family.

By September 1, Mr Chellia had a fever and felt too sick to move, struggled to breathe if he did walk, and was taken to Northern Hospital by ambulance.

“The doctors in the room said ‘before you get better, you will get worse,” Mr Chellia said.

“They gave me all the support I needed. When I was in the hospital, they felt like family members and somebody to look after me.

“The doctors have a plan, and they gave us antibiotics.

“The nurses work day and night. They don’t sleep, they run around in circles. They are in masks, face shields and everything 24/7 — how uncomfortable is that?

“But our weakness on my construction site, in my workplace, is the majority don’t want to wear it (a mask).”

Nathan Challia is imploring other tradies to take Covid seriously. Picture: Josie Hayden

After a week in the Covid unit and deteriorating further Mr Chellia said he called his lawyer to update his will, fearing he would never leave hospital.

Adding to his trauma, Mr Chellia noticed another patient who arrived in a similar condition, who instead improved and left the ward within three days.

When he asked what the difference was, Mr Chellia was told the other patient had undergone their first Covid shot.

“I thought I wasn’t going to make it because of chest infection, liver infection, everything starts … and I was losing a lot of weight,” he said.

“I’m there vomiting and crying … but because they had vaccination they got to go home early.”

Mr Chellia feels like a fresh nightmare is unfolding watching construction industry protest. Picture: Getty Images

Several of Mr Chellia’s close contacts had also caught the virus from him, including his four-year-old daughters, and there were dramatic differences in the conditions of those who were vaccinated and those who were not.

While he had never been anti-vaccination, Mr Chellia rethought his stance on the jab.

“It is my own fault. In my mind I didn’t really believe vaccine can help,” he said.

“I knew there was Covid there, but I didn’t put a priority on it.

“I said to myself ‘it is targeting the older people and I am healthy, I should be OK. If it came to a worse case scenario, if everyone else has had the vaccine, I might consider taking it’.”

Mr Chellia says the protesters don’t know what they’re doing. Picture: Aaron Francis

Dr Vicki Tse, who helped care for Mr Chellia in the Northern Hospital’s Covid ward, said it was wonderful to see him able to return home.

“It is really great seeing Nathan really recover and feel so much better from illness,” she said.

“But we are getting more and more patients coming into hospital.

”Our message to the public is to get vaccinated as soon as they can.”

While his illness has already driven a lot of his friends and colleagues to get vaccinated, Mr Chellia said he was determined to return to work and push for much greater uptake of vaccination, masks and distancing compliance.

“I know what I have been through, so I promise you that that’s not going to happen on my site while I’m working — because we’ve got families.”