Sister tells how she burst into tears when victim of police car accident fed himself unaided
Published: 21 January, 2011
by PETER GRUNER
A lopsided smile brings hope to the family of a cyclist in a coma for weeks after road crash
FORMER Guardian journalist Donald MacLeod, badly injured in an accident in Islington involving a police car, is slowly improving, his family revealed this week.
Father-of-three Donald, 60, who last year was in a coma for six weeks, is being treated at a nursing home in Highgate.
He was thrown off his bicycle and received serious head injuries in an accident with a police car at the junction of Southgate Road and Northchurch Road in March last year.
The police car, which had its siren and emergency lights on, was on its way to a shooting on the Wilton estate, off Greenwood Road, Hackney, in which a teenage boy was wounded in the leg.
Family friend Tony Coll, a film-maker, said Mr MacLeod was making slow but real progress. “He has passed from coma to a state resembling heavy sedation,” Mr Coll said. “He can sit in a wheelchair and support himself, and can sit unaided on the edge of the bed for a short time.
“He can breathe normally, swallow, cough and produce saliva. Donald sometimes gives his wife Barbara a smile of recognition – lopsided and fleeting but definitely a smile.”
Mr MacLeod’s sister, novelist Janet MacLeod Trotter, is using the profits from her new book, The Vanishing of Ruth, to pay for vital rehabilitation treatment for her brother, who was until recently in the Royal Neurological Hospital in Putney.
Ms Trotter, who lives in Morpeth, Northumberland, said that when she visited her brother recently he was feeding himself unaided with a spoon.
“That was very emotional and I just burst into tears,” she added. “I gave him his old reporter’s notebook and he managed to work out how to flip the pages.
“We gave him a Biro and he was trying to write something that looked like a shorthand squiggle.”
Mr MacLeod was ill over Christmas with an infection but since then has made more progress.
“One of the physios reported that he said ‘I’m OK’ in answer to a question the other day,” Ms Trotter said.
Mr MacLeod was head of communications with the Russell Group, which represents leading research universities, when the accident happened.
His life was saved by doctors at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel but he suffered severe brain injuries.
Ms Trotter said: “Don is a very gentle and humorous man with a dry wit. It is very distressing to see him like this because he is an extremely intelligent guy who went to Oxford and is well read. It is all these things we miss him for.
“You can tell there is a quiet fighting spirit when you see him. He is trying to make a breakthrough and connections.”
The Do It 4 Don fund is temporarily out of action at the moment. You can contribute to the fund via a special link on Ms Trotter ’s website. Or write to Janet MacLeod Trotter, 18 Dacre Street, Morpeth, NE61 1HW, UK.