MURKY AREA? NO KIDDING!!!

From the New York Times:
Brain-Injured Fireman's Recovery Takes Science Into a Murky Area

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

When Donald Herbert broke 10 years of virtual silence on Saturday and announced that he wanted to speak to his wife, his family and doctors were astonished and bewildered.

Mr. Herbert, 44, a Buffalo firefighter who suffered severe brain damage after being struck by debris in a burning building in 1995, had mustered only "yes" and "no" answers sporadically throughout the years, passing his days in front of a television that he could barely see because his vision was so badly blurred.

Neurologists said yesterday that such remarkable recoveries for people with severe brain damage are rare - but perhaps not as rare as the medical literature suggests.

"This is a phenomenon that is being frequently reported," said Dr. Joseph Fins, chief of the medical ethics division at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital and an expert on the subject. "It may be just the tip of the iceberg, and the question is how deep is it, what is the extent, and what are the predictors of this kind of reclaiming of consciousness."

Mr. Herbert, a member of a fire rescue squad in Buffalo, was buried under debris after rushing into a burning building on Dec. 29, 1995. He was knocked unconscious and slipped into a coma, but two and a half months later entered a state of faint consciousness that left him mostly unresponsive, according to family members.

After his abrupt awakening on Saturday, family members said, he was resting and slowly reconnecting with friends and relatives. Some friends said he was unable to see them, but could recognize them by their voices.

...Neurologists said yesterday that there was no way to know the true frequency of outcomes like Mr. Herbert's because people in his state have never been followed in long-term epidemiological studies.

Before his awakening, Mr. Herbert was nearly blind and virtually silent. Family members said he had not recognized them for years. Details of his recovery are murky, but neurologists said yesterday that his symptoms suggested that he had suffered damage to multiple areas of his brain because of a lack of oxygen for several minutes at the time of the accident.

"He has classic signs of hypoxic damage," said Dr. Alan C. Carver, an assistant professor of neurology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "It's not hard to understand what happened to his brain in 1995. What is remarkable is to think that after 10 years of being like this the brain should show evidence of regeneration, because when cells don't get oxygen for a prolonged period of time they die."

...Little is known about people like Mr. Herbert, who enter a state of subdued awareness and then abruptly awaken a decade or more later. But Dr. Fins of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell said their stories are strikingly similar, and suggest that recovery from years of minimal consciousness follows a steplike progression.

"There appears to be a window of time to move into this minimally conscious state, and from that there is a chance of recovering at distant time frames," he said.

The case with perhaps the most parallels to Mr. Herbert's may be that of Terry Wallis, a mechanic in Arkansas who slipped into a coma and then minimal consciousness at the age of 19 after a car accident. He was largely unresponsive, but could track objects with his eyes and even respond to some commands periodically. His family was told that he was unlikely to ever recover. But in 2003, after more than 18 years of virtual silence, he suddenly perked up and began speaking.

"These are cases that we're only finding out about sporadically," Dr. Fins said. "It really calls for an epidemiological study that can find out how many other patients like this are out there lingering in nursing homes."
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Given its complicity in the killing of Terri Schiavo, I wonder how painful it was for the NYT to print this article. My guess is very.
From The Independent:

But the 44-year-old former firefighter, badly injured in a fire in 1995, astounded doctors when on Saturday he suddenly looked up from the nursing home in Buffalo, New York, and told staff: "I want to talk to my wife."

For the next 14 hours, that is all he did do, without sleep, after staff raced to get his wife Linda on the phone, and his family rushed to his side. "How long have I been away?" he asked his family. They told him almost a decade. He thought it had been a couple of months.

...As news of his sudden recovery spread, friends and colleagues joined the stream of visitors. "He stayed up till early morning talking with his boys and catching up on what they've been doing over the last several years," Anthony Liberatore, a fellow firefighter, said.

The family were initially reserved as the media clamoured for more information. Mr Herbert's uncle, Simon Manka, issued a statement, saying he was able to recognise relatives by their voices. "He did recognise several family members and friends and did call them by name," Mr Manka said.

Following their 14-hour reacquaintance, Mr Herbert fell into a deep sleep for 30 hours, leaving his family to adjust to what had just happened, and doctors to look for explanations as to what had brought about his sudden reawakening. He has communicated since and has had moments of clarity, but has not returned to the level of communication he was at on Saturday, his wife said yesterday.

...Dr Rose Lynn Sherr of New York University Medical Centre said most people recovering from brain injuries 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."
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From CNN:

'Miracle' firefighter received experimental drug treatment

His wife refused to give up. His doctor had an idea.

Certain medications had shown promise in Dr. Jamil Ahmed's more recently brain-damaged patients, drugs normally used to treat Parkinson's disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression. He gave them to Herbert.

Three months later, on Saturday, something clicked in Herbert's brain. He started talking. Not only talking, his doctor said, but talking sensibly. Even making people laugh.

For the next 14 to 16 hours, until he fell into a 30-hour sleep early Sunday morning, Herbert chatted with his wife, Linda, his four sons and other family and friends, catching up on what he'd missed.

...Ahmed had told Linda Herbert to give the drugs six months. Even he was startled at their apparent effect. When Ahmed examined Herbert on Saturday, he could follow commands such as shaking his head, moving his hands and counting to 200.

"I went to see him in the nursing home and I was so amazed," Ahmed said. "I was so surprised that not only that he was talking but he was talking very sensibly. He was remembering his past, he just didn't realize how long he was asleep. ... He recognized people. His comments were very interesting and people were laughing."
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Why do you think the Schindlers were so relentless in their fight to keep Michael Schiavo, George Felos, their band of "Right to Kill" judges and politicians, and their liberal media mouthpieces from succeeding in their crusade to have Terri starved to death?

This is why.