Do I have ‘Mr Nuclear’ written across my forehead? asks Vincent de

“Do I have ‘Mr Nuclear’ written across my forehead?” asks Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of the UK arm of French power giant EDF. I remember thinking, “Why don’t you acknowledge me, why don’t you do anything?” You can’t move anything, nothing Not a single bit of you works. It wasn’t that I was coming out of the coma, it’s all part of it.You’re not with it You’ve got so much morphine in you. It’s like being in a cartoon and you’re watching the people at home, you can’t get out of it.

I was mellow still; it was the most relaxed, warm state I’d ever been in, like I was a little baby wrapped in cotton wool and nothing could harm me There’s no understanding. I didn’t know that I’d crashed, that I was in pieces with virtually every bone broken.I wanted someone to put their hand on my head and stroke me and say hello. Not, “Are you all right?” because, remember, my head isn’t telling me I’m in a hospital. I don’t understand why I’m there, why all these people are all around.I think my brain capacity was so busy trying to fix me that part of my brain was shut off. I don’t think your mind allows you to think about the dangers you’re in I think it’s a very clever part of the human body.

I think if your brain knew, your chances of survival would be less.My mum brought me out of it I managed to squeeze her finger a little. I tried to speak but bearing in mind that my jaw was broken in two places and I’d got no teeth … She says I was trying to tell her that she needed to call people for me, that I was running late for appointments and I’d be there I couldn’t string a sentence together for a long time. I think that was important.For 24 hours there was no flicker of life, except when they let my mum in.