When does a life technically end?

When does a life technically end?

Man Wakes After 19 Years in Coma
Main Category: Rehabilitation News
Article Date: 09 Jul 2003 - 0:00am (PDT)


Arkansas, USA - Man Wakes After Spending 19 Years in a Coma As the Result of a Car Crash; Greets Mother

A man regained consciousness after spending 19 years in a coma as the result of a car crash, greeting his mother who was waiting at his bedside.

'He started out with 'Mom' and surprised her and then it was 'Pepsi' and then it was 'milk.' And now it's anything he wants to say,' Stone County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center social director Alesha Badgley said Tuesday.

Terry Wallis, 39, had been at the center since the July 1984 crash.

His father, Jerry Wallis, said his son uttered his first word June 12, was able to talk a little a day later and has improved ever since.

Terry Wallis' wife, Sandi, said her husband was riding with a friend when their car left the road and plunged into a creek. Wallis and his friend were found the next day underneath a bridge. The friend was dead and Wallis was comatose.

'It's been hard dealing with it, it's been hard realizing the man I married can't be there,' Sandi Wallis said. 'We all, the whole family, missed out on his company.'

Wallis' daughter, Amber, was born shortly before the accident. She is now 19 and Wallis has said he wants to walk again, for her. He is a quadriplegic as a result of the crash.

His mother, Angilee Wallis, called her son's return to consciousness a miracle.

'I couldn't tell you my first thought, I just fell over on the floor,' she said.

While in a coma, Wallis spent most of his time at the rehabilitation center, but his family took him out for weekends and special occasions.

'The doctor said that's why he remembers things; we might have kept his mind going,' Sandi Wallis said.

Woman talks after 20 years in a coma
Last Updated Fri, 11 Feb 2005 14:50:41 EST
CBC News

HUTCHINSON, KAN. - A woman in Kansas who was knocked into a coma by a drunk driver 20 years ago has begun to speak and remember her past.

A hit-and-run driver struck Sarah Scantlin, then 18, when she was walking to her car in September 1984.

Her brain was injured so badly that doctors first feared she would spend her life in a vegetative state. For years, she has been aware of her environment but unable to form words or make any sounds other than loud cries.

That changed last month, when she suddenly told employees at the nursing home where she lives, "OK, OK."

"You condition yourself to be able to try to deal with something like this, and then all of the sudden, the world instantly changed from despair to joy," her father, Jim Scantlin, told CNN.

"It's amazing how important communication is between human beings."

The woman can now speak words and count, and has begun to remember people and places, staff at the nursing home say.

"It just happened one day and nobody really knows why," said Sharon Kuepker, administrator for the Golden Plains Health Care Center.

Scantlin's family and friends plan to gather at the centre on Saturday to celebrate the change.

"She's 100 per cent Sarah again," her father said. "The family is back together, and it's just simply a joyous situation."

The man who hit Scantlin, Douglas Doman, was jailed for six months after being convicted of driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident.

We know very little of what consciousness is, and how it occurs, as stories like this illustrate.

Materialists have no real explanation for consciousness on a chemical basis alone.

A growing modern tendency is to write off folks like these as those who will never regain cognition, pull the plug and harvest their organs.

real life wrote:

We know very little of what consciousness is, and how it occurs, as stories like this illustrate.

Materialists have no real explanation for consciousness on a chemical basis alone.

Neoroscience is in its infancy, yes. However, the cases you cite indicate broad public misunderstanding of what science does know. In neither case was the patient diagnosed as being in a Persistant Vegetative State - they were in coma ... big difference. Coma victims not uncommonly recover, sometimes after many years or even decades, however, PVS victims - those who's brain function is confined to the brain stem with no higher-order activity, do not recover. Among the advances of science in this area is, through various imaging and monitoring techniques, is increased precision in the matter of determining the amount and nature of brain function and activity in unresponsive patients.

Quote:

A growing modern tendency is to write off folks like these as those who will never regain cognition, pull the plug and harvest their organs.

Hysterical, hyperbolic, totally baseless, sensationalist, agenda-driven, ignorant bullshit.

Terry Wallis showed no improvement in the first year, and doctors soon pronounced him to be in a persistent vegetative state, and gave him virtually no chance of recovery, his parents said.

Wallis was frequently classified as being in a permanent vegetative state. Though his family fought for a re-evaluation after seeing many promising signs that he was trying to communicate, their requests were turned down.

"A careful bedside examination at 6 months [after the accident] would have unequivocally said he was not in a vegetative state," says Schiff.

Studies indicate PVS requires considerable skill to diagnose, including an assessment over a period of time; diagnosis cannot be made, even by the most experienced clinician, from a bedside assessment:


Out of 40 patients diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, 17 (43%) were later found to be alert, aware, and often able to express a simple wish. The study is one of the largest, most sustained analyses of severely disabled people presumed to be incapable of conscious thinking, communication, or awareness of their surroundings. The author, London neurologist Dr. Keith Andrews, said, "It is disturbing to think that some patients who were aware had for several years been treated as being vegetative.

Studies show PVS patients feel pain -- indeed, a Univ. of Mich. neurologist, in one of the most complete studies, concluded that, when food and fluids are withdrawn [to impose death], the patient should be sedated.

A study of 84 patients with a "firm diagnosis" of PVS found that 41% regained consciousness by six months, 52% by three years. These statistics certainly discredit the terms "persistent" and "permanent".

I heard it's when you get married.

There are no "miracles",

No. I'm using your post to talk to other people.