Man 'in coma' was conscious for years

[Dogberry]

Whoa! This is really scary, like the being buried in a coffin nightmare.

This guy live it for 23 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8375326.stm

A Belgian man who doctors thought was in a coma for 23 years was conscious all along, it has been revealed.

Medical staff believed Rom Houben had sunk irretrievably into a coma after he was injured in a car crash in 1983.

A doctor at Belgium's University of Liege who discovered that Mr Houben had been misdiagnosed said his case was not an isolated one.

"I was shouting, but no-one could hear me," Mr Houben, now 46, was quoted as saying by a German magazine.

According to Der Spiegel, Mr Houben, who can now communicate by using a special keyboard, has described how his body did not respond when he woke up after the accident.

'Second birth'

He has also said that he felt powerless as doctors and nurses tried to speak to him before giving up hope, and that he "dreamt the time away" as the years passed.

It was only in 2006 that a scan revealed that though Mr Houben was paralysed, his brain was in fact almost entirely functioning.

"I will never forget the day they discovered me," Mr Houben was quoted as saying. "It was like a second birth."

Mr Houben's story was revealed in a paper written by Steven Laureys, a doctor at Liege University who wrote a recent paper that detailed the case.

In it, Mr Laureys said that in about 40% of cases in which people are classified as being in a vegetative state, closer inspection reveals signs of consciousness.

[lily]

This happens more often than people think. I remember hearing another story about a woman who was in a really bad accident, and couldn't move, or speak or anything. They thought she was in a coma with no chance to come back, and she talked about how she could hear the doctors and her family talking about her, like she wasn't there, and discussing pulling the plug. If I remember correctly, the doctor had given a diagnosis that she wouldn't survive, and left it up to her husband whether or not to pull the plug, and she said later that she wanted to scream out, "I'm here! Don't kill me!" She could hear everything but she couldn't respond.

Thankfully, her husband did not end her life, and she later not only returned to normal but now she is an advocate for people who were in similar situations and is a public speaker on this issue.

This is just one of the reasons why i'm totally opposed to euthanasia.

[seekerofvisions]

holy crap!

[boedicca]

Indeed. This is like a 21st Century Edgar Allen Poe story.

[Dick Tator]

Pull the plug.