NI woman ‘Miss Veronica’, 76, is headline news in US after beating Covid-19

Veronica McAleer, 76, spent two weeks in Wilmington Hospital in Delaware with the deadly virus.

But the Co Antrim woman pulled through and on Tuesday, when she was discharged from hospital, friends and supporters greeted her with a welcome home parade from their cars.

A well known figure in Delaware, the heartwarming story of Miss Veronica — as she is known to locals — and her victory over the coronavirus was picked up by American news channels including CNN and ABC.

Back in Northern Ireland, great-nephew Zache Rushe said she is grateful to have overcome the disease.

“We were speaking to her on Wednesday night — we Facetimed her — and she’s just so thankful and she is so grateful.

“She didn’t even know she had it! Her friend noticed she wasn’t eating, that she wasn’t well, and that she had lost her taste so she took her to the hospital.

“She had pneumonia. She was in the ICU for four or five days.

“Her friend took her to a sort of shopping centre carpark when she got out and that’s where all her friends and her students had got together in their cars.”

Speaking to ABC News in America, Ms McAleer said: “I feel like jumping up in the sky. I am so excited that I beat it because I honestly didn’t think I was going to.”

The news channel described Ms McAleer as the “face of the Irish dancing community” in her home town.

Zache Rushe told the News Letter she has taught Irish dancing in Delaware since she moved there in the 1960s.

“She’s very active,” he said.

“She walks five miles every day. She takes junior dancers in the morning and she takes senior dancers in the afternoon and it’s in between that she likes to walk five miles. Fair play to her.

“She was told by the doctors that because she is in such good physical condition, for her age, that’s what helped her through.

“There were people who went in there younger than her who didn’t beat it, so she’s very lucky.”

He added: “She beat cancer, she’s had broken hips. But she prayed and there were people praying for her. She’s a great woman.”