Emmerdale’s Kerry Wyatt is set to fall into a coma next year.
The outspoken former factory worker – who battles with diabetes – will finally get her life back on track when she’s struck yet another blow after she falls unconscious on a bridge while out and about with her grandson Kyle.
Speaking to the Daily Star newspaper, Laura Norton – who plays the bolshie brunette – said: "Kerry is out spending the day with Kyle and begins to feel unwell. I collapse on the bridge and, because we’re near water, I shout at Kyle to run away and get help because I don’t want him to get hurt. However, when he is found everyone just assumes I got drunk again and fell over. But it’s not true."
After spending Christmas Day (25.12.16) alone following his split from Dan Spencer (Liam Fox), Kerry decides to ditch the booze for good but she’s tempted to hit the bottle again after she locks horns with Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley), who is the father of Kyle by Kerry’s daughter Amy (Chelsea Halfpenny).
She explained: "In the new year this feud with Cain seems to get out of control. He’s in a really bad place and keeps putting her down. There are just two jibes too many from Cain. He then takes it a step further and says she can’t have any access to Kyle. She is heartbroken again. So she’s in the Woolpack and trying her best not to drink but she’s lonely and manipulated by Charity.
"Charity (Dingle, Emma Atkins) is a sociopath and that’s where you do get to see that Kerry isn’t really a bad person. Charity seems to have no emotion or remorse and isn’t bothered at all. But in those scenes you see Kerry’s heart and Charity is behind the bar slyly spiking Kerry’s drinks with alcohol. So she gets goaded into doing something she doesn’t necessary really want to do."
Charity manages to get inside Kerry’s head and convinces her to get revenge on Cain by setting fire to the Dingles’ family caravan, but she doesn’t realise that her friend Zak Dingle (Steve Halliwell) had been staying in there.
Laura said: "She’s 100 per cent convinced that no-one is in there. She even knocks on the door. So she just smokes a cigarette and then makes a terrible decision. What she doesn’t know is that Zak’s actually been living there and could be inside. It’s devastating for her because she has a great relationship with him and he’s been kind to her, so the thought of hurting him just kills her.
"When she realises he’s safe she confesses what she’s done to him and he’s lovely to her, which makes her feel even worse. The repercussions with Cain are ongoing and she’s made an even bigger enemy of the most dangerous man in the village."