From the Dailymail, the headline:
Patient trapped in a 23-year 'coma' was conscious all along
Which, of course, I clicked on -- thinking here we have epic ingenuity; a guy willing to fake being in a coma for 23 years just to avoid going to work. (nurse leaves the room, on goes the TV, and out comes the contraband snacks) But no, it wasn't that at all:
A man thought by doctors to be in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it was revealed last night.
Student Rom Houben was misdiagnosed after a car crash left him totally paralysed.
He had no way of letting experts, family or friends know he could hear every word they said.
'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46.
Doctors used a range of coma tests, recognised worldwide, before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was 'extinct'.
But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.
Sheesh, what a horror that must have been. Even worse, what if he had been "allowed to die"? The inner dialog would never have been heard, but even imagining it, yikes.
***Update:
Oh man, this may be a hoax. Turns out the man can only type through a "facilitator", who guides his hand over the keyboard. So this might be a new horror: a cruel trick on the family by a sick person seeking notoriety. Watching the video, it sure looks to me like the "helper" is doing the typing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment