GRIZZLY ADAMS star DAN HAGERTY had to pull the plug on his wife's life support system after medics told him she "was gone" after a freak motorbike accident left her with extensive brain stem damage and massive internal bleeding.
The actor was golfing in Florida on 10 August (08) when he heard of the tragedy from his pregnant daughter, and flew home to Los Angeles to be with Samantha, his wife of over 20 years, and their family.
She had been riding back from a dinner date without a helmet when she hit a deer and was thrown from her bike, according to American publication the Globe.
The 53-year-old was airlifted to UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles but medics insisted nothing could be done for her.
Hagerty tells the tabloid, "The doctors told me the bad news. The Sam we loved was gone. They were keeping a fragile shell of her alive.
"It was the hardest, most heartbreaking decision I've ever had to make, to tell the doctors to let my beautiful Sam slip away into her long sleep. I wept like a child."
And Hagerty, who himself spent days in a coma after a bike accident in 1991, fears his wife's death will overshadow the birth of his daughter Megan's son - his first grandchild.
He adds, "I know he'll look like his grandmother and that will probably break my sore heart all over again."