I'm not dead..... but I'm still dead funny' Comedian Don Reids' friends were devastated when they heard that he'd died in a freak car accident. Fans published an obituary mourning his death, and a top TV producer held a two minute silence. The irony of it all was that DON WAS STILL ALIVE!! Although he lingered close to death in a coma, wife Dawn forced him to fight back and now he's bringing laughter to others. " When I was well enough to be taken off a ventilator eighteen days after the accident, word reached a club magazine that my life support system had been switched off " he recalls. " Assuming the worst, they printed an obituary " Don was in a coma, his injuries included a fractured skull, collapsed lung and all his ribs were broken. Dawn says " When he eventually came home after the accident he was aggressive and spoke gibberish, the drugs made him hallucinate we thought he'd gone loopy ". "He suffered dreadful nightmares, but to him they were real, he couldn't remember a thing about the accident- he thought he'd been in a plane crash or run over by a tank ".

Don recalls " I used to weep with frustration . Dawn had to bathe me, brush my teeth (both of them!) - I'd lost a huge chunk of memory and couldn't perform everyday things " Dawn encouraged him to recollect bits of his past, finally helping him return to the stage, amazingly just ten weeks after being given up for dead. He had them rocking in the aisles once more when he performed an eight minute comedy spot satirising a Butlins Redcoat. Don enthuses " Dawn was in the audience and I'm sure that she shed a tear, she never let me know - she's too strong for that " Today Dons diary is fully booked, he says " Life is better since the accident, we have had to cut our cuddles down to one per day. When I came home from hospital our mutual affections were choking us. I couldn't stop holding her - she's so precious to me " The exaggerated obituary takes pride of place in Dons scrapbook, together with clippings from his stage triumphs. He laughs " I plan on being dead funny for a long time to come "