FOR ten months, he had been lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and unresponsive.

The injuries Mathew Taylor had suffered in a motorbike crash were so severe that his devastated family were warned he may never wake up.

But then came the phone call that would change everything. From her home in Bali 11,000km away, Mr Taylor’s fiancee Handayani Nurul chatted to him – and at the sound of her voice, tears began trickling down his cheek.

It was the first time the 31-year-old had shown any sign of recovery since fracturing his skull in the horrific accident on the Indonesian island.

Now, every time the phone rings, Mr Taylor reaches out his hand.

Describing the moment Mr Taylor first responded to his fiancee’s voice, his stepfather Simon Moore said: ‘He had tears in his eyes as we held the phone to his ear. She asked him something and he said a silent yes.

"Then tears were coming down his face. It was brilliant."

Now, Mr Taylor’s mother Heather calls Miss Nurul, known as Anda, and passes the phone towards her son.

Mr Moore said: "As soon as he hears her voice he lifts his hand for the phone. He listens to her and you can see this change in him."

Mr Taylor, from Overseal, Derbyshire, met Miss Nurul, 27, after he moved to Indonesia in 2009 to teach English.

The couple planned to get married, but Mr Taylor was knocked down while riding a motorcycle in Bali on July 9 last year.

As well as a fractured skull, he had to have his eye socket reconstructed, using bone taken from his thigh.

Following surgery, he slipped into a coma and has remained in a vegetative state ever since.

Mr Taylor had no medical insurance, so his family were forced to raise £100,000 for him to be treated in Bali. His father, Darrell Taylor, contributed £50,000 of his savings, while Mr Moore remortgaged his home to find the remaining £50,000.

In October, Mr Taylor was transferred back to Britain, and his parents have kept a bedside vigil at Royal Derby Hospital ever since.

Miss Nurul managed to secure a visa so she could join them at his bedside for three months, but after that she was forced to return home to Bali, where she studies Dutch literature at the University of Indonesia.

Since the first phone call three weeks ago, Mr Taylor has slowly started to recover more movement in his body.

"He’s really come on," said Mr Moore. "He is still in a low awareness coma but he moves his hand left and right when the phone rings. We are so pleased he is recovering. We spend most of our days at hospital and some days are good and others bad but we take what we can get.

"We are just happy he is responding."

Yesterday Luke Griggs, spokesman for brain injury charity Headway, said Mr Taylor could now make a full recovery.

He said: "Coma arousal programmes are often used to try to stimulate patients who are in reduced states of consciousness, such as a coma or a persistent vegetative state.

"These carefully planned periods of stimulation - in the form of sound, touch, smell and taste - are combined with periods of complete rest in order not to overload the person’s senses.

"While each individual case is different, in general terms the longer a person remains in a state of reduced consciousness, the less likely they are to make a full recovery.

"We have heard of several examples of people waking from comas and going on to make good recoveries and live happy, fulfilled lives.

"Examples like this demonstrate that coma arousal programmes may well be effective."