The fiancee of a north-east policeman who suffered brain-damage in a car smash six years ago is certain her “quietly determined” partner will come back.
John Alcock, 46, spent three years in Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin following the accident. He was on his way to guard the Queen at Balmoral.
The royal protection officer from Garmouth was a passenger in a marked police car which was involved in a collision with a Land Rover Discovery driven by Italian tourist Marco Bologna in August 2003.
He was left in a persistent minimal conscious state and in need of 24-hour care.
His claim for £10million in damages was settled in 2008. The details were never disclosed.
Last night, his partner Donna Alcock , 46, of Lemanfield Crescent, Garmouth, where the couple live, said the drug Zolpidem, which he began taking daily in 2008, seemed to be bringing him closer to consciousness.
She added: “John becomes exceptionally animated when he gets this drug but we still cannot get a route of communication. We are still waiting for that wee breakthrough.
“In the evenings I get him through into the lounge and on to the sofa and I will chat to him for a while and then we will sit quietly and when I start speaking again he will start to squeeze my hand.
“I do not know if he remembers me or the children but he certainly recognises my voice. It is fascinating what is going on.”
Mr Alcock was given a very gloomy life expectancy when he was initially injured. Doctors doubted that he could ever leave the hospital. But his partner’s persistence to get him home has led to vast improvements in his health and wellbeing.
He has strokes the dog, and his right eye can follow a rotating star in the room.
Nurses put him through muscular physiotherapy every day to prevent twisting of his spine and to keep his body supple.
Donna said: “He has not got the slightest bit of contracture, he has got as full a range of movement as an immobile person can have, there is no twisting, there is no contracting, there is no damage to his spine. I keep reassuring him, ‘Look your spine is intact, it is fine. You can get up and play with Calum, it is fine’. If his brain could only just form new paths of communication and movement.”
The couple have a son Callum, 8, while Donna has two older children, Stacey, 19 and David, 17.
Donna said despite help and support from friends she misses her partner terribly.
She added: “I just miss him. I really, really miss him. I get a lot of support from friends and family but there is a void only John can fill.
“I appreciate the John I know and love has gone but the essence of John is still there and whatever comes back will be a bonus. When we took him home from hospital he was forgetting to breath 15 times in one hour and here we are three and a half years later. He has the lungs and the heart of an ox and he’s going strong.”