AS her boyfriend lay in a coma, devastated Jo Ventham didn’t know if he would live or die.

Mounting a bedside vigil at Southampton General Hospital, she was desperate for the smallest of signs that he would pull through.

After preparing for the worst, she was overjoyed when Tom Vavrecka – her boyfriend of four years – finally came out of his coma nine days later.

Seeing him lying in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with terrible head injuries, the city hospital’s Wessex Neurological Centre had played host to the worst days of her life.

So with Tom on the road to recovery, it would be fair to assume that Jo would never want to step foot inside there again. But when the trainee doctor was given the choice of where she wanted to spend her final fourth year placement, the 22-year-old didn’t hesitate. The natural choice was ICU at the Wessex.

“I could have chosen anywhere in the world, but I knew I wanted to do it there,” said Jo. “I wanted to have a better understanding of what had happened to Tom.”

The couple, who are both from Poole, had been on separate Saturday nights out in Bournemouth, when their nightmare unfolded in July last year.

When Jo received a phone message from Tom’s dad asking her to get to Poole Hospital A&E, she was not unduly concerned.

“He said Tom had been assaulted but I thought he had probably broken his wrist or something like that. When I arrived though all his mates were outside crying.”

Despite her medical training, nothing could have prepared Jo for just how badly injured semi-professional footballer Tom was.

“It didn’t hit me until I saw him. He was in a really bad way, wearing a big neck brace and he was unconscious. A tube had been put down his throat so that he could breathe. There were lots of monitors and he had a bleeding lip. They said his pupils weren’t reacting to light, which was a really bad sign. It was all very scary.”

The gaps were soon filled in for Jo. Tom, 24, had been the victim of a sickening attack – headbutted from behind by a man outside a kebab shop – after their friends argued. He fell down immediately and hit his head on the pavement.

As his shattered family waited for news, a scan revealed Tom was not totally brain dead, but he did have blood clots.

Whisked to Southampton for emergency surgery, it was touch and go whether Tom, who plays for Poole-based Hamworthy United, would survive.

“We were told his prognosis did not look good at all. It was a case of, if he does survive, he will probably be disabled.”

The operation was a success but doctors could still not say whether Tom would recover.

As a medical student, Jo may have been used to hospitals, but this was different.

“Being a trainee doctor, I’m so used to have quite a matter-of-fact approach to patients but I went into girlfriend mode. It was late at night, I was emotional and this was not just another patient, it was my boyfriend.”

Visiting Tom every day as he remained in a coma, Jo was broken hearted when she had to leave his side to sit her third-year university exams in Norwich.

Determined she wanted to stay with Tom, she was eventually convinced that it was what Tom would have wanted.

After three days away, Jo rushed to visit Tom, who had been transferred back to Poole Hospital – he had woken up.

“It was amazing,” she smiled. “I looked through a window and he looked straight at me and smiled. We both burst into tears and he said: ‘I’ve been thinking about you the whole time.’ “I was so relieved. I hadn’t known if he would remember who I was or still feel the same way. Although any physical problems would have been awful, especially for him, I think I would have been able to deal with them better than if he had lost who he was as a person.”

Despite Jo’s joy, Tom had a long road to recovery ahead.

The left side of his brain had been affected, leaving him partially paralysed down his right side.

He needed help eating, washing and going to the toilet, and he had trouble with his speech. He likened his brain to that of a ten-year-old. No one knew if it would be permanent.

But over the weeks that followed, a determined Tom, a business and finance student at Bournemouth University, fought his way back to health.

Incredibly, just six months after the attack he was back playing for Hamworthy. And today he has made a complete recovery.

“I am so proud of Tom,” said Jo. “He has been very brave and has not felt hard done by.”

Closer than ever, the couple hopes to move in together when they both graduate next year.

For now Jo is concentrating on her studies and her placement at the Wessex.

“A lot of the patients on the unit are young men with head injuries. The prognosis is very uncertain and it reminds me of how painful that was when Tom was here.

“Seeing the relatives coming in is more emotional for me than the patients sometimes because I have an idea of what they are going through.”