A Polish railway worker who fell into a coma in 1988 — a year before the fall of communism — has awoken to a world of democracy, mobile phones and abundant choice and said that he is amazed to find that people still complain.

Jan Grzebski, 65, was cared for at home by his wife, Gertruda. She turned him over several times a day to prevent him getting bed sores. He had lost consciousness after being hit by a train.

At the time of his accident, the fall of the Berlin Wall seemed a distant prospect and the world was more concerned about a nuclear war than terrorism. Poland was ruled by Wojciech Jaruzelski, its last communist leader, and Lech Walesa was organising another shipyard strike by Solidarity.

“When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere,” Mr Grzebski, sitting in a wheelchair while his wife held his hand, told Polish television. “There are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin.”

Mr Grzebski regained consciousness in April but has only recently been fit enough to meet journalists. He lives in Dzialdowo, in northern Poland.

“When I went out to buy him a new shirt, he was amazed that the shops are open on Sundays,” Mrs Grzebski said.

Today blazing neon has ousted the dim lights of the communist era and Mr Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live after the accident, is coming to terms with having missed his country joining Nato in 1999 and becoming a full member of the European Union in 2004.

He is in no doubt of his debt to his wife. “It was Gertruda who saved me, and I’ll never forget it,” he said.

“I cried a lot, and I prayed a lot,” Mrs Grzebski said.

Boguslaw Poniatowski, a doctor familiar with Mr Grzebski’s case, said that his life had been saved by his wife’s tireless attention. “For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose huband’s position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections.” The case has echoes of the 2003 German film Good Bye Lenin! in which an East German woman wakes from a coma after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Her son tries desperately to shield the bed-ridden mother from the shock by pretending nothing has changed and getting a friend to record fake TV news broadcasts.

Mr Grzebski awoke to find that his four children had married and produced 11 grandchildren. He had vague memories of family gatherings that he was taken to while in a coma, and of his family trying to communicate with him.

“What amazes me today is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning,” Mr Grzebski said. “I’ve got nothing to complain about.” He added: “I’m very interested in politics now. Sometimes I spend half the day listening to what politicians have to say.”

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