Kate Garraway says husband Derek’s brain is ‘not his friend’ and he is ‘fighting to get out’ of coma

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Kate Garraway has heartbreakingly said her husband Derek Draper's brain is "not his friend" as he continues to battle complications due to coronavirus.

The 53 year old's husband has been in hospital for a year after contracting the illness, with doctors admitting they are unsure of what state he may return to.

Good Morning Britain host Kate has made a documentary about her husband's battle, and took to Thursday's episode of The One Show to give an update about his health.

Host Alex Jones said: "I know lots of people, Kate, have followed your story and, I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say, have been in awe of the way you've dealt with the last year.

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"We know that you haven't seen your husband Derek in terms of going into the hospital to visit him since December. How is he now?"

Kate responded: "One of the things I'm here to talk about is the documentary, and what you will see in that is this time last year, like a lot of us, I was wondering what was coming our way, fearing the worst, on air reading headlines about the earliest cases of people contracting coronavirus, and then I suddenly found myself right in the middle of it.

"There was weeks and months of living minute by minute, wondering if I was going to get the call to say whether he'd lived or died. So you're in this strange sort of world where you're just sort of existing minute by minute.


"Then, last summer, something changed and I learnt something, and I think it's something we've all learnt now that, actually, coronavirus is horrific, those daily death tolls are horrific but it isn't just that."

She explained: "If you get coronavirus and you're lucky, you live, fantastic. If you're unlucky, you lose your life, but there is also a whole group of people that are trapped in a middle ground where the damage from coronavirus is so great that they're not sure that they can get their life back, and that's where he is.

"Derek is an extreme case, so what he had was called a prolonged disorder of consciousness, which means there is some reaction, it's not like the coma that we see in movies where people are sort of lying in a vegetive state.

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"He can open his eyes and, before Christmas, there was a lot of progress with some words and communication.

"But what I feel like is I'm on a sort of lifeboat and he's coming up and down, you're trying to hold on to him, and there'll be moments when he bubbles up and you have some contact, and it feels like you're having to fill him with so much positivity because he's going to sink back down."

Kate went on: "He is somebody who, both before I knew him during his time in politics and since in all the work he's done around mental health, has wanted to… well his brain has always been his best friend.

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"He's lived on his wits, and suddenly his brain which, as we know, controls the body is no longer his friend, and he's fighting to get out.

"It's very, very tough but I think if it's tough for me, it must be tougher for him."

The One Show airs weekdays at 7pm on BBC One. Kate's documentary Finding Derek airs on 23 March at 9pm on ITV.

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