A Polish man has woken up from a coma after 19 years to find the Communist party no longer in power and food no longer rationed.

Railway worker Jan Grzebski, 65, fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988, reports Polish TV.

“Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin,” he told Polish television.

When Mr Grzebski had his accident Poland was still ruled by its last communist leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski.

“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 said.

“What amazes me today is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning. I’ve got nothing to complain about.”

He credits his survival to his wife, Gertruda. Doctors gave him only two or three years to live after the accident.

“It was Gertruda that saved me, and I’ll never forget it,” Mr Grzebski told news channel TVN24.

Mrs Grzebski is reported to have moved her husband every hour to prevent bed sores.

“I cried a lot, and I prayed a lot,” Mrs Grzebski said on Polsat television. “Those who came to see us kept asking: ‘When is he going to die?’ But he’s not dead.”

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