Posted on 08/04/2005 5:49:22 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin was seemingly unaware of the world around her after she was hit by a drunk driver in an accident that sent her into a comatose state in September of 1984.
Then in February, she shocked her parents and doctors when she began to speak. In her first national television interview, after undergoing surgery on her long-unused limbs and speech therapy to unlock her long-dormant tongue, Scantlin speaks with The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith in a two-part interview to be broadcast Thursday and Friday.
Smith also speaks with Sarah's parents, Jim and Betsy Scantlin, who never imagined they would talk to their daughter again.
In a February interview on The Early Show , Sarah’s father recounted the phone call he and his wife got, informing them of the unimaginable.
"It was amazing. I'm in the living room. Betsy was in the computer area, and the phone rings ... and suddenly, I'm aware that there's a profound, distinct difference. Rather than speaking about Sarah, it became very clear she [Sarah’s nurse] was speaking to Sarah. It was the most amazing feeling in the world," he said.
The 1984 accident occurred when Scantlin was crossing the street in her hometown of Hutchinson, Kan. She suffered a massive brain injury and could not breathe on her own. Smith speaks with New York neurologist Randolph Marshall, who says that people like Scantlin rarely awake from such an injury. "You only hear about these cases very rarely and they’re always a surprise when they actually come to light," he says.
Scantlin’s speech is still limited.
However, it seems that throughout her 20-year coma, she could see, hear, and understand what was going on around her. Shortly after she awoke, her father asked what she knew about events that had occurred years earlier.
"Sarah, what's 9/11?" her father asks. She responds, "Bad…fire…airplanes…building…hurt people."
Smith says there are other things deep in Scantlin’s brain that also survived the accident, such things as her favorite 1980s song "Summer Lovin’," which she even sings for The Early Show.
Recently I read an article about a man who sings and reads books to coma patients. He has done this for years. Those patients who emerge from their comatose states, laud him for his work, explaining how much they enjoyed listening to him in their sleep state.
Catholic Ping - Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
I am so happy for this woman and her family! THANK GOD there was no monster lurking near her to inflict starvation and dehydration as the preferred murder mode used against the inconvenient ( with the exception of the brutal murder tactics of abortionists ).
Pro-life bump!
**This is wonderful news that won't go anywhere in the media.**
Not unless we write about it in letters to the editor, or call a local paper's attention to it!
ABCNNBCBS is basically a bunch of lazy reporters who have a bias.
Incredible story.
#1: Personhood is coterminous with physical, metabolic human life. It begins with a single cell --- a human master cell--- which under the proper conditions, can grow and organize ALL its own tissues, organs, and systems; and it ends when the living system comes to a full stop.
Any other definition --- anything that separates "human" from "personhood"--- and you will sooner or later be in the same classification as a chattel slave, a German Jew, a fetus, or a Leslie Burke: a "life form" which possesses a human genome, human tissues, a human identity, maybe even a human name --- curiously, everything human, except human rights.
#2: If you're ever flat on your back in a hospital bed and find yourself looking up into the progressive, enlightened, and humane eyes of somebody described as a "bioethicist," for God's sake KEEP TALKING while reaching slowly for your gun.
Bump
Oh my God. I can't believe it. What hell Mr. Burke will have to face, and to think the 'bioethicist' who testified that the patient had no rights and was a non-person because of incompetence or incommunicability sat and faced him, person to person! (Ok, that's my inference, but they were at the same trial.) What a scary world. Has Stephen Hawking weighed in on this? I don't know if it's an option or not, but Mr. Burke should consider relocating. Prayers sent for Mr. Burke. What a nightmare.
Words to keep living by!
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Please read Oorang's comment about her own personal coma experience.
Here's my understanding - since each human being is an eternal soul - atma - spiritual particle - and the body is a vehicle, consciousness is the quality of the soul, so even if the body is not functioning properly, as long as the soul is still there, there is still some kind of consciousness.
If this were not so, stories like those on this thread (and countless others) would not be true.
It is true that people in coma can often hear. It is only simple kindness to assume they can, and not speak in front of them what you don't want them to hear - and to read, sing, pray and talk to them. And not to kill them.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
Note: Let God decide what their departure date is; after all, they belong to Him.
People in comas are aware of much that goes on around them as I have always expected. Simply amazing.
Isn't that the truth? This is amazing.
The Schiavo case (as with abortion and embryonic stem cell slaughter) demonstrated a denial of the spiritual dignity of the human being. That was pretty clear. The medical "experts" have no way of knowing for sure or proving that only certain types of measurable brain activity indicate that some form of awareness is there. In fact, a number of the coma cases seem to challenge these materialistic and reductionist assumptions. The relationship between consciousness (i.e., the soul of the person) and electrical brain activity is not something written in stone in some medical lab somewhere.
A miracle.
No kidding. From what I've seen on TV, doctors have advised talking to comatose patients, but I'm not sure they know how much is getting through. It seems more of a 'it can't hurt' thing. Now it looks like maybe a lot gets through to these people and we should treat them well.
... I told you that I SAW Terri. I was in to see her twice. I saw her once in September and I saw her once just a couple weeks ago. And she communicated. She's alert. We prayed. She follows everything thats happening in the room with her eyes, turning her head, smiling. When I was in there with her parents, her dad leaned over to kiss her, and she made the motion to kiss him back...
She's not able as I said, to articulate her words, but she attempts to speak. And if she HAD the benefit of some physical therapy and some speech therapy, she would be in a lot BETTER condition, but guess what? She has been DENIED that treatment, she has been denied that simple physical and speech therapy, by the same person who wants her to be starved."
-- Fr. Frank Pavone, transcribed by FL engineer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1350669/posts?page=18
Terri: We will never, ever forget you or your smile.
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