John Donaldson was told his wife had been left brain dead after being hit by a police car. He tells Nigel Green how he refused to give up hope and is now seeing glimmers of the woman he married return.

EVERY Friday afternoon, John Donaldson would fill out a betting form for the horses and set off with his wife Linda to the bookies. It was their little routine. John, 56, who worked as a lorry driver for Newcastle City Council, would return home to their house in Walker about noon, having finished early on Fridays.

But on Friday April 12, 2002, John returned home to an empty house. Soon, there came a knock at the door. A taxi driver told him the awful news that Linda had been hit by a car.

"He drove me over to where she was," recalls John.

"She had been carried around 100 yards down the road and was lying on a manhole cover. She was crumpled and bleeding. She had a ruptured spleen, liver and kidneys, as well as a broken pelvis, crushed ribs and lungs. Her right shoulder and arm were shattered.

"I was cuddling her head. I could see her eyes were moving but they were not responding. There was nothing. I realised straight away it was a police car. I could see the car and the smashed windscreen.

"I didn't know it, but the policeman was still there at the time. He was in a chemist shop nearby. Apparently, he was very upset and kept saying: 'What have I done? What have I done?'."

The ambulance took Linda, 55, to Newcastle General Hospital. Doctors later told John his wife had died twice and that they thought her brain stem was alive but that the rest of her brain was dead. Linda was left in a coma for more than six months.

"I spent every night up there," says John. "I would sit all night, talking to her and telling her what was happening and what the family had been up to.

"During the day, someone else from the family would take over. I wanted to make certain that, if she did die, someone she knew would be with her."

John admits that he felt so depressed at times that he believed Linda would be better off dead.

"I was at the stage where I wish she had died," he says candidly. "I'm just glad I didn't let her. It was so hard seeing her lying there, getting no response. She had to have everything done for her.

"Then, one night, I was sitting with her and I was talking to her and there seemed to be some response. She gently squeezed my hand and I could see her eyes moving."

Linda was eventually moved to Hunter's Moor Hospital, in Newcastle, where staff are trained to help people who have suffered head injuries. And last summer, Linda was allowed out of hospital and into a purpose-built house in Heaton, Newcastle.

The couple, who married 37 years ago, have three children - Marie, 35, John, 34, and Kristy, 17.

Kristy now works as a full-time carer, helping to look after her mum.

"I have to wash her, dress her, feed her and give her medication," she says. "I don't think my mum would want me to be having to do this but it's the way things have happened. I don't mind doing it. It's just something you get used to.

"The progress my mum's made has been phenomenal. I'm really proud of the way my dad has coped as well."

John has had to give up his job to help look after Linda. The family has a team of nine carers, with at least two in the home at any one time. The money they have received in compensation from Northumbria Police following Linda's accident will help pay for the care she needs.

Meanwhile, John now does all the housework his wife used to do. "I'm up at 5.30am putting rubbish out and doing all the other jobs that need doing," he says.

During the five years since Linda's accident, John has never lost hope. He believes the old Linda is slowly coming back to him.

"She was always very loving and very sociable and caring," he says. "She got on well with everybody. She was very outgoing. She was the life and soul of the party.

"She still can't walk or eat but she can breathe and she can lift her head. Her old character is starting to come out again. You can ask her for a kiss and she will give you a kiss."

John and Linda also have four grandchildren - Alan, 15, Shannon, 12, Emma, nine and Lauren, eight - and Linda responds really well to them.

John says Linda's carers had recently heard her speak. One day she replied "morning". Another day she managed to say "hello".

Frustratingly, John has not yet been there when Linda has spoken. But he remains close to her side, hoping that one day he will hear again the voice of the woman he married.

"She has come on fantastically well," he says. "But I would just love to hear her talk again. I live in hope."