Brain damage mysteries
This is from an AP story today:
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - Nearly 9½ years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He asked for his wife.
Staff members of the nursing home where Donald Herbert has lived for more than seven years raced to get Linda Herbert on the telephone.
It was the first of many conversations the patient had with his wife, four sons and other family and friends Saturday during a 14-hour stretch, Herbert’s uncle Simon Manka said.
“How long have I been away?” Herbert asked.
“We told him almost 10 years,” the uncle said. “He thought it was only three months.”
Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, was fighting a house fire Dec. 29, 1995, when the roof collapsed, burying him under debris. After going without air for several minutes, Herbert was comatose for 2 1/2 months and has undergone therapy ever since.
Video shows him receiving physical therapy but apparently unable to communicate and with little awareness of his surroundings. **Not unlike Terri Schiavo, in expression. Brad **
“He stayed up ’til early morning talking with his boys and catching up on what they’ve been doing over the last several years,” firefighter Anthony Liberatore told WIVB-TV.
Herbert’s sons were 14, 13, 11 and 3 when he was injured.
Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years.
“It’s almost unheard of after 10 years,” she said, “but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don’t understand why.” **We are fearfully and wonderfully made Psalm 139**
“The extent and duration of his recovery is not known at this time,” Manka said. “However we can tell you he did recognize several family members and friends and did call them by name.”
There have been a few other widely publicized examples of brain-damage patients showing sudden improvement after a number of years.
In 2003, an Arkansas man, Terry Wallis, returned to consciousness 19 years 19 years! after he was injured in a car accident, stunning his mother by saying “Mom” and then asking for a Pepsi. His brain function remained limited, his family said months later.
Tennessee police officer Gary Dockery, who was brain damaged in a 1988 shooting, began speaking to his family one day in 1996, telling jokes and recounting annual winter camping trips. But after 18 hours, he never repeated the unbridled conversation of that day, though he remained more alert than he had been. He died the following year of a blood clot on his lung.
(I'm reminded of the movie "Awakenings" and the true story of several catatonic (after an encounter with encephalitis) patients that were given the drug L-Dopa in 1969 and temporarily awakened from their zombie-like existence of many years. Those people were in there all that time, trapped inside their own bodies, betrayed by an illness that robbed them of their ability to function normally. If you haven't seen this film by Penny Marshall, you owe it to yourself (plus Robin Williams and Robert De Niro) to do so and be inspired.)
We need to look for the humanity in others. To see the spark of the Divine that dwells in all of us. From the most comatose and brain-damaged "vegetables" like Terri Schiavo, may she rest in peace, to the most gifted, able-bodied, and celebrated among us. Well, we don't need to look for it in the latter. And, sometimes the divine part may escape detection, especially in the celebrated...
And, never give up hope- not 'til that last breath is drawn! "Hope springs eternal in the human breast.."
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - Nearly 9½ years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He asked for his wife.
Staff members of the nursing home where Donald Herbert has lived for more than seven years raced to get Linda Herbert on the telephone.
It was the first of many conversations the patient had with his wife, four sons and other family and friends Saturday during a 14-hour stretch, Herbert’s uncle Simon Manka said.
“How long have I been away?” Herbert asked.
“We told him almost 10 years,” the uncle said. “He thought it was only three months.”
Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, was fighting a house fire Dec. 29, 1995, when the roof collapsed, burying him under debris. After going without air for several minutes, Herbert was comatose for 2 1/2 months and has undergone therapy ever since.
Video shows him receiving physical therapy but apparently unable to communicate and with little awareness of his surroundings. **Not unlike Terri Schiavo, in expression. Brad **
“He stayed up ’til early morning talking with his boys and catching up on what they’ve been doing over the last several years,” firefighter Anthony Liberatore told WIVB-TV.
Herbert’s sons were 14, 13, 11 and 3 when he was injured.
Dr. Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Center said when patients recover from brain injuries, they usually do so within two or three years.
“It’s almost unheard of after 10 years,” she said, “but sometimes things do happen and people suddenly improve and we don’t understand why.” **We are fearfully and wonderfully made Psalm 139**
“The extent and duration of his recovery is not known at this time,” Manka said. “However we can tell you he did recognize several family members and friends and did call them by name.”
There have been a few other widely publicized examples of brain-damage patients showing sudden improvement after a number of years.
In 2003, an Arkansas man, Terry Wallis, returned to consciousness 19 years 19 years! after he was injured in a car accident, stunning his mother by saying “Mom” and then asking for a Pepsi. His brain function remained limited, his family said months later.
Tennessee police officer Gary Dockery, who was brain damaged in a 1988 shooting, began speaking to his family one day in 1996, telling jokes and recounting annual winter camping trips. But after 18 hours, he never repeated the unbridled conversation of that day, though he remained more alert than he had been. He died the following year of a blood clot on his lung.
(I'm reminded of the movie "Awakenings" and the true story of several catatonic (after an encounter with encephalitis) patients that were given the drug L-Dopa in 1969 and temporarily awakened from their zombie-like existence of many years. Those people were in there all that time, trapped inside their own bodies, betrayed by an illness that robbed them of their ability to function normally. If you haven't seen this film by Penny Marshall, you owe it to yourself (plus Robin Williams and Robert De Niro) to do so and be inspired.)
We need to look for the humanity in others. To see the spark of the Divine that dwells in all of us. From the most comatose and brain-damaged "vegetables" like Terri Schiavo, may she rest in peace, to the most gifted, able-bodied, and celebrated among us. Well, we don't need to look for it in the latter. And, sometimes the divine part may escape detection, especially in the celebrated...
And, never give up hope- not 'til that last breath is drawn! "Hope springs eternal in the human breast.."
posted by Brad @ 5:20 PM
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