Kate Garraway fears husband Derek Draper could be ‘locked in forever’ following covid-19 battle

It is coming up to one-year since Kate Garraway’s husband, Derek Draper, was hospitalised with coronavirus.

And while his battle with covid-19 has been won, it has caused serious damage to his body - with his kidneys having failed, his pancreas damaged and countless infections leaving holes in his lungs. 

He remains in intensive care, having failed to gain consciousness from his induced coma - but how is he doing now?

The Good Morning Britain star - who is releasing a new book - has told of her devastation at being told Derek could be “locked in forever,” after coronavirus “wreaked havoc on his body.”

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Kate - who shares two children, Darcey, 15, and Billy, 11, with Derek - made the heartbreaking admission that doctors can’t tell what Derek’s future looks like.

She told The Sunday Times, “The very worst moment was when they said he could be locked in forever. And I just thought, this is a horror story. I don’t know if he’ll ever have any kind of life again. We just don’t know.”

Kate, 53, also revealed how, in the early days of Derek’s hospital stay, a case of mistaken identity caused her family 24 hours of hell, after she was told her husband “may have died”.

She faced an agonising 24 hour wait to discover the truth. "I was just sitting on the phone, waiting to know if he’d died or not."

She was simply told, "He may have died. Somebody will call you back."

One of the hardest parts of Derek’s agonising health battle is undoubtedly the fact she is unable to visit him in hospital, due to the current national lockdown. 

The TV star was able to visit Derek with their two children over Christmas, but has not seen him since. And Kate thinks the no-visitors policy could be detrimental to his progress.

"I haven't seen him since Christmas, which of course means he's back into a situation where he's looking at strangers in masks.

"And I think that's the situation for everybody, they've got somebody in the hospital at the moment, it's not unique."

"It's tough. It's also the same for people in care homes. And when you're someone like him who is dealing with a consciousness problem and trying to emerge, I can't help but fear it's not helpful."

Kate will reveal the horror of what she’s lived through during the past 12 months in a one-off documentary, Finding Derek, which will air on ITV this spring.