The simple sign that showed friends of woman in coma she would live

In January, BBC radio presenter Clemency Burton-Hill underwent emergency brain surgery after collapsing from a brain haemorrhage.

The 39-year-old fell into a deep coma, but before she showed any sign of emerging, her close friend Andrew Staples noticed she was tapping her foot along to music.

"I remember it struck me as a non-typical piece to inspire toe-tapping," the British opera singer, who was at his friend's bedside at the time, told the BBC.

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Burton-Hill says music has played a key role in her recovery from the near-fatal brain injury.

The radio host collapsed during a meeting in New York, suffering a massive brain haemorrhage caused by an un-diagnosed condition.

Known as arteriovenous malformation (AVM), it sees an uncommon and abnormal cluster of blood vessels meshing the arteries and veins in the brain, and is fatal in three per cent of all patients.

During the emergency surgery, half of Burton-Hill's skull was removed and she was unconscious for two and a half weeks.

Music has helped her learn how to speak and walk again. She is also undergoing physical therapy to strengthen the right side of her body, which was affected by the bleed.

Despite the obstacles to recovery created by the coronavirus pandemic, Burton-Hill claims music has forced her to use "both sides of the brain" to accelerate her recovery.

"It's as though it trains your brain to be ambidextrous," she says.

For Burton-Hill, who has been working on her motor skills over the past few months, music gives her "solace": "It's the thing that helps me to get up, and fight, and to live."

In the early days of her coma, a speaker by her hospital bed played a selection of songs compiled by her closest family and friends.

As doctors removed her breathing apparatus, one of Burton-Hill's favourite pieces of music played through the speaker.

"With her good hand she grabbed my wrist as I leant over her shaven head, and I sang the words to her," Staples recalls. 

"We both cried a lot. I wasn't worried from then on about whether she was 'in there' anymore."

Burton-Hill adds: "Music is the opposite of despair. It was going to be worth the fight."

The broadcaster, who plays the violin, was also visited by her violinist friend Nicola Benedetti. The pair played their instruments together during the visit.

"It's a clichéd idea that music is beyond language, but from what I've experienced in my own brain, I truly know that now," Burton-Hill says.

In a piece for You Magazine, she recalled the moment the "world went dark" and her health ordeal began.

"My speech started slurring. I was instantly aware something was terribly wrong. My mouth was not cooperating," Burton-Hill wrote.

"I tried to speak again – the words were clear in my brain but came out as gobbledygook. I was terrified. Then suddenly the world went dark."

She said hope had kept her going as she fought for her life.