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Man Actually Conscious Throughout Two Decades of "Coma"

By Alex in Medicine on Nov 23, 2009 at 3:31 am


Twenty three years ago, a car crash left Rom Houben totally paralyzed. Doctors gave him a battery of tests and concluded that he was in a vegetative state or a coma. Except that they were wrong: he was conscious the whole time but unable to tell anyone about it.

‘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.

Mr Houben describes the moment as ‘my second birth’.

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COMMENT
  1. J-I-H
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 am

    Locked-In Syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome

    Everyone's worst nightmare.

  2. Larfin Jackarse
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 am

    This is the 'Daily Wail'.

  3. BillR
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 8:17 am

    wow. thats some twilight zone stuff right there.

  4. Miss Cellania
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 8:23 am

    More stories of Locked-in Syndrome:
    http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/19084

  5. Manticore
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 8:35 am

    more like Daily FAIL, amirite?

    Anyway, they mention the right to die debate, I think I'd much rather die than have to suffer that way. A prisoner in your own body? No way.

  6. Max Power
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 10:55 am

    So there IS a devil. :|

  7. Johnny Cat
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Absolute horror, etc.

  8. Gauldar
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    @Max Power

    Huh?

  9. LisaL
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    Good god. I can not even imagine what that had to have been like. Not being able to talk to anyone for 23 years!!! Literally just sitting in your head all of that time. I'm surprised the guy didn't go insane.

  10. pwscott
    Nov 23rd, 2009 at 8:08 pm

    Totally weird. How many more people are out there suffering the same way? :L

  11. Moriarty
    Nov 24th, 2009 at 11:10 am

    If this is truly what's happening, then I'm truly happy that he's able to communicate. However, I get warning lights from the fact that this isn't computer assisted communication, this is someone who's moving his hand.

    I've heard of similar circumstances where the person moving the hand thought the hand was moving itself, but it wasn't - like a ouija board. It's pretty easy to disprove with a double-blind test, by showing the paralyzed person one picture, the nurse another, and then asking the paralyzed person what picture they saw. In every case, they spell out what the nurse saw.

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