Kate Garraway’s devastating 12-hour flight after Derek’s heart attack | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV

Kate Garraway took a devastating 12-hour flight to get her husband Derek Draper home from Mexico after he suffered a heart attack.

Garraway made the desperate attempt to save Draper, who died on Wednesday evening, after he suffered a cardiac arrest while in Mexico undergoing specialist treatment for long Covid.

A source close to Garraway told The Sun she had spent “eight gruelling weeks” looking after their children Darcey, 17 and Billy, 14, in London while her husband was undergoing treatment in Latin America.

But while taking a connecting flight in Mexico, Garraway was told her husband had suffered a cardiac arrest.

Draper, who sustained brain, kidney and liver damage as a result of contracting Covid in 2020, was put on a medical-evacuation plane for the 12-hour trip home after his condition was stabilised.

The flight began on December 11 with Garraway by her husband’s side for the 12-hour journey and then spent Christmas with him at a London hospital before he died aged 56.

A source close to Garraway told The Sun: “It’s been an unbelievably gruelling eight weeks for Kate, and how she is still going is quite remarkable.

“Derek and Kate made the trip to Mexico in November. They did it without fanfare as they didn’t want to get up everyone’s hopes.

“The treatment went incredibly well, and his doctor and all the consultants were hugely optimistic about his long-term progress, and future.

“Unfortunately as Kate excitedly returned to bring Derek home he suffered a cardiac arrest.

“Doctors confirmed this could have happened at any point over the last four years due to the damage to Derek’s organs inflicted by Covid. Quite simply, it was unavoidable.

“Kate was by his side in intensive care in Mexico and worked with Derek’s UK consultants who oversaw his treatment and his return, which was a military operation.”