In December 2023, it was announced that Kate Garraway’s husband, Derek Draper, had suffered a major heart attack in Mexico where he was being treated. The man and his wife came back to the UK in a hurry and Draper was hospitalised. Unfortunately, Derek Draper’s death was announced on 5 January 2023.
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These health issues occurred after Draper got Covid-19 in 2020. At the time it was announced that he had a severe case of the virus which required him to be in hospital. Years later, the man still had many side effects.
Through it all his wife was with him. The story of Garraway and Draper became a symbol of the devastating impacts of Covid-19. Now, after his death, new details about what Garraway did to help her husband and cope with this agonising situation keep on being brought back.
Kate Garraway was searching for her husband’s voice
On 10 January Daily Mail brought back to the surface an extract from Garraway’s 2023 autobiography The Strength of Love. In it she reveals that she put herself through ‘torture’ as she witnessed her husband fading away.
I called Derek’s old mobile number and heard his "old voice" on the answerphone – so powerful, so in control, the soft Lancashire accent so familiar and now so distant from the whispered words we heard from Derek every day.
Garraway also explains that she didn’t stop there. As she wrote herself she ‘pushed (herself) to the limit’.
I was floored, but knew I had to... go deeper, so I searched his last texts to me and his emails going further back than the final heartbreaking ones he’d sent me from the hospital, before he was put into the coma.
Three years on, reading these day-to-day conversations brought me to tears. I felt full of regret that I hadn’t treasured this connection... more.
Derek Draper’s health battle left him incredibly diminished and weak, barely able to talk and move. Piers Morgan, a friend of the couple, explains in his column for The Sun that hearing Draper speak on the phone with a strong voice and conscious was something extraordinary.
Kate Garraway after her husband’s death
The passing of Derek Draper came as a shock for many but certainly even more so for Garraway. Indeed, as we said before, her husband was undergoing treatment in Mexico at a clinic he had visited before.
The treatment is reported to have gone very well with doctors being very optimistic. The Daily Mail writes what a source said:
The treatment went incredibly well, and his doctor and all the consultants were hugely optimistic about his long-term progress, and future
Since the passing of her husband, Kate Garraway has kept a low profile and sent statements to be read by presenters of shows like Good Morning Britain and This Morning. All statements were read with a lot of sadness and with the spreading of the news Garraway is receiving an immense outpour of support from fans.
In a video message on Good Morning Britain shared on Monday 8 January, Garraway thanked people for their support emphasising that it ‘really does mean so much’. She also shared these messages of ‘extraordinary comfort’ to herself and her family.
In her message she also had a word for people suffering as well:
Maybe you too are going through grief yourself or have done in the past. I send love and support for you too.
Finally, she expressed that though the current time is very much focused on healing she evoqued her return to the morning show:
I look forward to waking up with you very soon again on Good Morning Britain to celebrate life in all its wonder and challenge again.
Read more:
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⋙ This couple's long Covid story is heartbreaking: 'Terrified that I might never recover'
Sources:
Daily Mail: Kate Garraway admits she 'tortured' herself by calling husband Derek Draper's phone to hear his 'old voice' before his tragic death aged 56: 'I needed to push myself to the limit'
BBC News: Derek Draper: Kate Garraway thanks supporters as she deals with 'pain' of husband's death
