Kate Garraway says husband 'burst into tears' as he arrived home after COVID battle

Kate Garraway has said her husband Derek Draper burst into tears as he arrived home after more than a year in hospital battling COVID.

Draper, the Good Morning Britain star’s husband of 15 years, fell ill in March 2020 and had been in hospital since then.

He has finally returned home, and Garraway revealed it had been emotional for everyone.

Read more: Kate Garraway reveals husband has 'worrying downs' amid coronavirus battle

Speaking on GMB, she said the couple’s two children - Darcey, 15, and Billy, 11 – were waiting at the window as she and Draper pulled up outside.

“I could see two little faces of Darcey and Billy looking out of the window and I could literally see them go, ‘He’s here!’" she said. “They ran out and opened the door.

"He immediately burst into tears, there was a lot of hugging and we got him inside. He absolutely knew he was home."

The TV star became emotional as she was preparing dinner because she realised that she was setting four places at the table for the first time in months.

She said: "I’ve been saying to him all the time in the coma, ‘When you get home you can have one of my casseroles’, which he loves by the way, that’s not a threat, because he can swallow a bit now.

Watch: Kate Garraway's husband Derek home from hospital amid year-long COVID-19 battle

"So I said, let’s see if we can get you round a table somehow with the four of us, so we sort of managed to do that."

Fighting back tears, the star added: "As I was laying out the plates I realised I was laying out the plates for four… makes me cry now."

Garraway said that Draper is aware of where he is and that although he is not speaking as he would have done before, he is “responding all the time”.

"It feels like the start of a huge chapter, but a really really big and important one,” she said.

Read more: Kate Garraway writing book about husband Derek Draper's coronavirus battle

The star said Draper will need round the clock care.

“On top of the care side, there’s the very specialised therapeutic intervention, which will have to come in to make sure that this isn’t just about getting him with us for us, it’s hoping that actually this will prompt some recovery,” she said.

“He’s definitely sort of plateaued at this level. Obviously we’re very grateful for this level but want to see if we can move forward, if we can get him speaking more, able to move more and see what we can draw out. It’s going to be very slow and a bit of wait and see.”

Garraway was inundated with good wishes after Draper returned home.

Her fellow GMB star Ben Shephard seemed to be moved as he shared the happy news on the ITV show on Friday morning, saying it meant an “awful lot” to everyone there.

Former GMB colleague Piers Morgan tweeted that it was “fabulous news”.

Good Morning Britain airs on weekdays on ITV from 6am and catch up is on the ITV Hub.

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