Kate Garraway remembers harrowing call with husband Derek Draper: 'There's no way out'

Kate Garraway has opened up about the awful moment her husband Derek Draper told her he thought he could not go on with his coronavirus struggle.

The Good Morning Britain presenter's husband has been in hospital with the effects of coronavirus since March last year, and she has detailed his struggle in new ITV documentary Finding Derek, due to air on Tuesday.

Read more: Kate Garraway shares first photo of Derek Draper in hospital

Garraway, 53 recalled one particularly harrowing FaceTime conversation with Draper, the father of her two children, in November when he said: “There’s no way out… I’ve got to the point where I just think f*** it… I don’t know how to cope.”

She told the Daily Mirror that to hear those words “was absolutely devastating, but it showed me he was still in there. Even though it was terrible to think his spirits were so low.”

She said: “Being able to get those words out, for him physically, it’s as tough as running three marathons, that’s the way the doctors described it.

Read more: Kate Garraway says husband is trapped after COVID battle

“It takes huge amounts of energy and spirit for him to do that. It’s so huge for his body to be able to get that out. It’s a huge power of spirit actually to be able to speak out in that way.”

Garraway, who has been open about her husband's struggle to recover over the past year, added: “I think he was at his wits’ end physically and mentally, but thankfully we have moved passed that, and he is fighting on.”

She also recently spoke about a terrifying mix-up early on in his illness when she had called the hospital for an update on his condition and was told that he "may have died".

Draper had been confused for another patient with a similar name, and Garraway faced an agonising wait of 24 hours to hear whether her husband was all right.

Watch: Kate Garraway hails 'kindness of strangers' during Derek Draper's COVID battle