It was one of the most moving segments viewers had ever seen on This Morning.
Ruth Langsford held the hand of one of her former producers who has been left brain injured and unable to speak.
Amy May Shead was a bright and successful young woman back in April 2014 but now she’s confined to a wheelchair after eating some food containing nuts.
Amy was on holiday in Budapest in April 2014 with friends when she suffered a catastrophic anaphylactic reaction.
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She’d only taken one bite of food when she had the reaction and collapsed.
During Amy’s interview on ITV, host Ruth held her hand and told her she was missed by the team.
Amy had done all she could to stay safe at the restaurant. She told them she was allergic and even showed waiters a card in Hungarian to warn them.
She was assured the dish made with chicken would be fine but as soon as she began eating, she suffered a reaction.
Friends tried to help her by using two epi-pens she carried at all times but she was still left in a coma and her brain was starved of oxygen for nearly six minutes.
Just days before she flew to Hungary, animal-lover Amy May had been tweeting about her foster-pet dog Tucker and her newly-refurbished London flat, which she’d redesigned herself.
Now both she and her parents are campaigning for nuts to be banned from planes because, they say, there’s a huge risk of keeping them in such confined spaces when somebody could be allergic.
Viewers looked on heartbroken as Amy struggled to respond to Ruth’s questions.
One wrote: “Seeing the devastation an allergic reaction has caused to Amy is heartbreaking, so scary how life can change in a split second #ThisMorning.”
Another tweeted: “Heartbroken watching Amy on @thismorning 100% back the campaign! Need to spread awareness how dangerous nuts can be to people 😢#ThisMorning.”
Viewers were touched to see how much Ruth cared: “It was rather lovely to see Ruth being so caring towards Amy, so sad watching this #ThisMorning,” tweeted one.
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A second added: “@thismorning so sad & awful Amy’s story. I wish her well. Ruth showed such kindness & affection. You come across as a lovely person Ruth.”
Meanwhile This Morning doctor Ranj Singh tweeted that he was in tears watching the segment.
Despite not being able to speak, Amy is still very much aware of what’s going on and Ruth took care to speak to her directly while Eamonn too told her at the end that he missed their conversations they used to have when they worked together.
He also told her parents that he could definitely see signs of improvement in Amy since the last time he had seen her.
After the show, Ruth turned the cameras around on the studio to show Amy’s colleagues swarming around on her return to the show.