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...boy recovers completely Although a team of four physicians insisted that his son was “brain-dead” following the wreck, Thorpe’s father enlisted the help of a general practitioner and a neurologist, who demonstrated that his son still had brain wave activity. The doctors agreed to bring him out of the coma, and five weeks later Thorpe left the hospital, having almost completely recovered.

Rush Limbaugh has said that the October surprise of 2008 was the ultimate in pre-election boondoggles and chicanery. I mean, what could possibly top it? Anything? Anything at all? Maybe this. It's the last week of October. Obama is down 10 points to Romney. This calls for desperate measures - the October surprise of all surprises. Special Bulletin: President Obama has suddenly and unexpectedly fallen into a coma! The whole nation mourns for Moochelle and senior staffers, Malia, Sasha, and Bo. Occupy Wall Streeters have dropped their Molotov cocktails and are holding solemn candlelight vigils. With the president in a...

A friend and former co-worker of mine is fighting for his life against another onset of cancer. He had surgery two weeks ago to have his colon removed. The surgery seemed to go well, but things went badly a few days ago. Elevated blood pressure, erratic heart, 104 temperature, and he went into a coma. More surgery to find out what's wrong is needed, but can't happen until he is stable. Slight improvement in the last two days. Leonard needs your prayer power.

Doctor Wolfgang Koller said on Friday that it took nearly 50 minutes to reanimate the prince, who is the second son of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. MRI scans have showed his brain suffered "massive damage" in the avalanche in Lech on Feb. 17 in which he was buried for at last 15 minutes. "It is clear that the oxygen starvation has caused massive brain damage to the patient," he said. "At the moment, it cannot be predicted if he will ever regain consciousness." Prince Friso, 43, who is married and has two young daughters, will be moved at a...

Sam Schmid, an Arizona college student believed to be brain dead and poised to be an organ donor, miraculously recovered just hours before doctors were considering taking him off life support. Schmid, a junior and business major at the University of Arizona, was critically wounded in an Oct. 19 five-car accident in Tucson. The 21-year-old's brain injuries were so severe that the local hospital could not treat him. He was airlifted to the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Phoenix, where specialists performed surgery for a life-threatening aneurysm. As hospital officials began palliative care and broached the...

21-Year-Old Man Wakes From Coma Before Doctors Take Organs Tucson, AZ -- A 21-year-old man has awaken from a coma just hours before doctors were ready to shut off life support and take his organs for donation purposes. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/22/21-year-old-man-wakes-from-coma-before-doctors-take-organs/

AP Interview: French doctor says he treated comatose Kim Jong Il in 2008, confirms stroke By Associated Press, PARIS — A French neurosurgeon confirmed Monday that Kim Jong Il had a debilitating stroke in 2008, and described secretly treating the reclusive dictator while the North Korean public and world remained unaware of his condition. /snip Roux, the chief of neurosurgery at Sainte Anne Hospital in Paris, said he was urgently flown to North Korea in August 2008 to examine Kim who was unconscious and “in a bad way” and in intensive care at Pyongyang’s Red Cross Hospital, in the communist...

Former Egyptian president, 83, due to stand trial for the killing of protesters and abuse of power on August 3; news of cardiac arrest follows reports that he's suffering from cancer. Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak suffered a cardiac arrest and is currently in a coma, his attorney said on Thursday. Last month, Mubarak's lawyer said the ousted Egyptian leader was suffering from cancer. Mubarak, 83, was forced from office in February after a popular uprising. He is due to stand trial on Aug. 3. for the killing of protesters and abuse of power, charges he denies. He has been...

Gloria Cruz, 56, underwent brain surgery after a tumor was discovered when she suffered a stroke on March 7 and was rushed to the Royal Darwin Hospital in Darwin, Northern Territory. Doctors told her husband Tani Cruz, 51, the case was “hopeless” and she would probably die within 48 hours following the surgery. After two weeks, a breathing tube was inserted in Mrs Cruz's mouth and the ventilator was turned off. Hospital staff were stunned when she woke from her coma three days later.

Hidden Debt Makes Governments Insolvent: Bear Posted By: Patrick Allen | CNBC EMEA Head of News CNBC.com | 07 Mar 2011 | 12:13 AM ET /snip On top of these, a mountain of debt is growing but because it is off governments' balance sheets it has been so far ignored, one man who worries perhaps more than most, Albert Edwards from the global strategy team at Societe Generale, said. One of the world's most famous bears, Edwards is adamant the global economy and financial markets are not in a good place. "The global economy is critically ill. The fact that...

King County has settled with the family of a man who was severely injured by sheriff's deputies in 2009 for $10 million. Christopher Sean Harris, from Edmonds, suffered permanent brain damage when he was tackled by deputies in May 2009. Harris' family filed a civil lawsuit against King County, claiming deputies used unnecessary force when they arrested him after a chase, knocking his head into a wall. John Cobb, the senior prosecutor on the case for the county, confirmed the settlement five days after the civil trial began on January 20. The settlement is believed to be the largest of...

Lock up your Fathers  Pricey ... OAP spent savings in brothel sessions     By MATT QUINTON Published: Today AN 81-year-old granddad has been put under house arrest by his family after a bizarre accident turned him into a sex addict. Frail Angelo De Luca was in a coma for four days after he fell out of a plum tree at the family home in Biasca, Switzerland. But coming round from an operation his family were horrified to watch their devoted widower dad turn into a randy teenager again. Sex mad Angelo blew £3,000 of his savings in one session...

BOURNEMOUTH, England, April 10 (UPI) -- A British mother, her son in a coma, thought she was saying goodbye to him for the last time -- until he woke up and opened his eyes, observers say. Nick Verron, 26, was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver during an unprovoked attack last July 4 in coastal Bournemouth, England, The Daily Telegraph reported. Verron's mother, Sue Vincent, had given permission to doctors to stop the drugs that they believed were keeping her son alive. Instead of dying, Verron started breathing independently, opened his eyes and within weeks was able to sit...

This raises some interesting issues regarding how we care for those in vegetative states. A new study observed the brain of an unconscious patient responding to yes and no questions just like a normal person. Well, almost. Of 54 test subjects in the New England Journal of Medicine study, one man who was diagnosed as being in a vegetative state five years earlier actually answered yes or no questions. And did so accurately. The answers came from a brain scan conducted by an MRI machine. Answering “yes” and “no” shows activity in different parts of the brain. For instance the...

Trace of Thought Is Found in ‘Vegetative’ Patient BENEDICT CAREY February 3, 2010 He emerged from the car accident alive but alone, there and not there: a young man whose eyes opened yet whose brain seemed shut down. For five years he lay mute and immobile beneath a diagnosis — “vegetative state” — that all but ruled out the possibility of thought, much less recovery. But in recent months at a clinic in Liège, Belgium, the patient, now 29, showed traces of brain activity in response to commands from doctors. Now, according to a new report, he has begun to...

Patients In 'Vegetative' State Can Think And Communicate Patients left in a “vegetative” state after suffering devastating brain damage are able to understand and communicate, groundbreaking research suggests. By Richard Alleyne and Martin Beckford 03 Feb 2010 'Vegetative state' brain scan images:: the fMRI images which were used as part of the study by Dr Adrian Owen [Pics in URL] Experts using brain scans have discovered for the first time that the victims, who show no outward signs of awareness, can not only comprehend what people are saying to them but also answer simple questions. They were able to give...

A car crash victim who was believed to have been in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time. Rom Houben was paralysed but could not let doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying, reports the Daily Mail. "I dreamed myself away," said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state. Doctors conducted a series of coma tests before 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 said: "All that...

Brussels, Belgium (LifeNews.com) -- No sooner did Rom Houben make international headlines than skeptics and euthanasia advocates attempt to discredit the story of a man who says he was falsely tagged as being in a coma for 23 years. Houben has been embraced by those who say physicians are too quick to label patients as in a vegetative state. As LifeNews.com noted, Houben shared his story this week of how he is now able to talk with the world now that a scientists retested him, found his brain to be functioning normally, and provided him with therapy allowing him...

A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them - but could make no sound. 'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state.'I dreamed myself away,' he added, tapping his tale out with the aid of a computer. Doctors used a...

Man in 23-Year-Long Coma Speaks, Says He Was Always Conscious London, England -- After he was the victim of an automobile accident, doctors said 23-year-old Rom Houben was in a comatose state and unable to communicate with those around him. Now, 23 years later, the 46-year-old says he felt trapped as he was conscious the entire time and attempted to communicate. http://www.LifeNews.com/bio3007.html

A car crash victim diagnosed as being in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time. Rom Houben was paralysed but had no way of letting doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying. 'I dreamed myself away,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state. He added: 'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear.' ...

A man thought by doctors to be in a vegetative state for 23 years was actually conscious the whole time, it was revealed last night. Student Rom Houben was misdiagnosed after a car crash left him totally paralysed. He had no way of letting experts, family or friends know he could hear every word they said. Rom Houben was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (pictured posed by model) 'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46.

The Obama Administration may have found its breakthrough in dealing with Iran, but not through its diplomatic engagement. Rumors are spreading in and outside of Iran that Supreme Leader Khamenei, who at 70 years old has been known to be in poor health, is in a coma or dead. The regime denies this, but has failed to offer any proof that he is alive. Khamenei may ultimately prove to be alive, but it is clear something happened to him and his near-term fate is uncertain. The rumors that Khamenei was in a coma began to quickly spread after prominent Iran...

Khamenei has died. The formal announcement is expected to be made tomorrow morning (Tehran time) . Relative to this, all regime organizations including the official regime news agency "Seda va Sima" are beig draped in black.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2009) — Scientists have found that some individuals in the vegetative and minimally conscious states, despite lacking the means of reporting awareness themselves, can learn and thereby demonstrate at least a partial consciousness. Their findings are reported in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience....This learning requires conscious awareness of the relation between stimuli -- the tone precedes and predicts the puff of air to the eye. This type of learning was not seen in the control subjects, volunteers who had been under anaesthesia.

The Perth hospital in which a woman gave birth to a stillborn baby without staff noticing has defended its level of care. Sharon May was in an induced coma in intensive care while being treated for pneumonia and swine flu at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Mrs May was 24 weeks' pregnant, when last month while still in a coma she gave birth to a stillborn boy

WERA Racer Chapman Critically Injured At VIR Aug 09, 2009, ©Copyright 2009, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc. http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=37639 From a press release issued by Team Velocity Racing: Zac Chapman, a WERA racer and team rider for TVR/EBC Brakes Yamaha, was critically injured in a sprint race on Saturday during WERA’s Cycle Jam at Virginia International Raceway. Chapman supported TVR during the endurance race on Friday, although he opted not to ride. He is recovering from a broken ankle and felt the hour-long stints might be too strenuous. After the endurance race, Chapman stayed to compete on his own bikes throughout the...

With his wife in a seemingly irreversible coma, Michael Smith brought his children to Bethesda North Hospital in Cincinnati to say goodbye to their mother before she was pulled off life support. But Lori Smith’s 8-year-old daughter Megan wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Instead, she said, “Mom, if you love us and you hear us, move your eyes.” “Lori moved her eyes, and that was the first sign that I knew Lori was there,” Michael Smith said. “I didn’t know if Lori was being mom for the last time or what, but God really gave us a miracle and brought...

SANTIAGO, February 18, 2009 (LifeSitenNews.com) - In a story that stands in stark contrast to the Eluana Englaro and Terri Schiavo cases in Italy and the United States, a Chilean man has been visiting his comatose wife for 17 years, and says he won't give up on her.Carlos Abarca has always visited his wife regularly, and now that he has retired from the national police force, he is able to come three times a day.  He says that caring for her is his whole life."My affection will always be focused on her, I have never doubted it," he told the...

A California man, who spent four days in a coma and was about to be disconnected from life support, is now on his way to making a full recovery. Mike Connelly’s family had just given doctors permission to turn off the machines keeping him alive when his stepson noticed a tear slide down the side of his face, the North Coast Times reported. Moments later, another family member was shouting that the 56-year-old was responding. "He said Mike was responding," the stepson told the newspaper. "I didn't believe him, but I went back in there, and it was true. You...

Andrew and Emma Ray with their children London, Jan 28, 2009 / 02:31 am (CNA).- A woman who doctors believed could remain comatose indefinitely recently revived after her husband asked her for a kiss.Just ten days after giving birth to her son, Telford, Shropshire resident Emma Ray suffered a heart attack and collapsed while shopping with her husband, Andrew. Andrew performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her, after which she was taken to a hospital where doctors were able to restart her heart.“She could wake up the following day, she could wake up in a month, or you may be left...

NEW YORK—Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, the heiress who spent the last 28 years of her life in oblivion after what prosecutors alleged in a pair of sensational trials were two murder attempts by her husband, died Saturday at age 76. She died at a nursing home in New York, her children said in a statement issued by family spokeswoman Maureen Connelly.

JOSH VILLA was 26 and driving home after a drink with a friend on 28 August 2005 when his car mounted the kerb and flipped over. Villa was thrown through the windscreen, suffered massive head injuries and fell into a coma. Almost a year later, there was little sign of improvement. "He would open his eyes, but he was not responsive to any external stimuli in his environment," says Theresa Pape of the US Department of Veterans Affairs in Chicago, who helped treat him. Usually there is little more that can be done for people in this condition. Villa was...

A court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by the family of a comatose 75-year-old woman to let her die. Kim’s children said their mother, who survives on life support, had the right to die with dignity so she would not have to continue living a meaningless life and asked for permission to remove the respirator and discontinue injections and feeding. But the Seoul Western District Court said that stopping treatment conflicted with the principle of the absolute value of life, and there was no way to confirm Kim’s own will. The court ruled that even family members do not...

As a lifelong New Yorker and a contemporary of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, I am amazed that Rudy is still fooling so many people in the rest of the country. Rudy is NOT an acceptable presidential candidate for conservatives. Rudy may have been the best conservatives could hope for as a Mayor of liberal New York City, but he's not a true conservative, a moral exemplar or even faithful to his faith. Rudy's hero was Bobby Kennedy. Rudy once said, "Most of [Bill] Clinton's policies are similar to most of mine." When running for mayor, Mr. Giuliani pledged to "rekindle...

"Paulo Melo, 29, has been in a coma at the Royal Darwin Hospital for two weeks, after severing his spinal cord in a car crash." - read more below: doctor requested, family objected, court granted

http://www.yahoo.com/

Of course, Pro-deathers will be quick to keep the Schiavo case in check.

Interesting article about the awareness of vegetative patients. We are not able to post the New Yorker's content, but check out the link. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/10/15/071015fa_fact_groopman?printable=true

Milan, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- An Italian court has denied a request by a disabled woman's father to remove her feeding tube and authorize her death by starvation and dehydration. Eluana Englaro has been a coma for 15 years after an automobile accident seriously injured her and, this year, her father asked a Milan court for permission to remove her feeding tube. This isn't the first time Englaro's case had been in court. In April 2005, the Italian Supreme Court confirmed a lower court ruling to keep her feeding tube in place. That case had also been brought by Englaro's father,...

ABC News' Bob Woodruff Reports: Senator Tim Johnson, the South Dakota Democrat who suffered a near fatal brain hemorrhage last December, will seek reelection in 2008. Johnson greeted South Dakota voters Tuesday, in his first public appearance since falling ill. We continue to wish Johnson well, but now that Johnson decided to seek reelection it's time for the gloves to come off. Johnson won reelection in 2002 by just 524 votes and was a tempting target even before he became ill. Two Republicans, State Representative Joel Dykstra and business man Sam Kephart, are running for Johnson's seat.

A study by the Coma Science Group of the University of Liège, Belgium, finds that up to half of patients in an acute vegetative state regain some level of consciousness.In the study, which analyzed data collected over a five-year period, researchers assessed and classified comatose patients according to the Coma Recovery Scale. The researchers determined that some 40 percent had been incorrectly diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state, when they were in fact in a minimally conscious state. And 10 percent of those diagnosed as being minimally conscious were communicating functionally.A patient who is minimally conscious shows periodic...

Two short weeks after the culmination of a legal battle between his wife and family over whether to maintain his life support, Jesse Ramirez of Arizona appears to be on the road to recovery. According to local reports, Ramirez, 36, suffered traumatic brain injury in a May 30 car accident, which put him in a coma. He had been in this minimally-conscious state for a little more than a week when doctors informed his wife that he may never recover -- and she made the decision to have his feeding and water tubes removed. Ramirez's family made a legal appeal...

SAN DIEGO - Wayne Albert Bleyle confessed to molesting "countless" young, brain-damaged children under his care at the hospital where he worked for 25 years, prosecutors say. On Tuesday, 15 months after his confession, the former respiratory therapist pleaded guilty to abusing four patients - a boy and three girls, including a 2-year-old toddler. The plea leaves unanswered how many disabled children he preyed upon. Bleyle, 55, treated 176 patients during the 10 years of his career at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. Bleyle told investigators he could only remember the names of four children, prosecutors said, hampering efforts...

~~~snip~~~ However, Mr Grzebski, who saw his story unfold first in the Polish media and then saw it repeated around the world, has now said he was never in a coma for 19 years. "I never said any of those things, I was not in a coma for 19 years, I only spoke to one journalist and what they wrote was not true - and every time the story was printed new things emerged," he added. ~~~snip~~~

Warsaw, Poland (LifeNews.com) -- A Polish man who doctors said would survive only two to three years after an automobile accident in 1988 has awaken from a 19 year coma. Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, a 65 year-old former railway worker entered the coma during a time of Communist rule in his native country and woke to find it a democracy and to see lots of other changes. "When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere," Grzebski said. He credited his caring wife Gertruda with his...

A Polish man has woken up from a 19-year coma to find the Communist party no longer in power and food no longer rationed, Polish TV reports. Railway worker Jan Grzebski, 65, fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988. "Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin," he told Polish television. He credits his survival to his wife, Gertruda, who cared for him. Doctors gave him only two or three years to live after the accident. A comatose...

WARSAW, Poland - A railway worker who emerged from a 19-year coma woke to a radically altered Poland and thinks "the world is prettier now" than it was under communism, his wife said Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT Gertruda Grzebska, 63, said that for years she fed her husband Jan carefully with a spoon and moved his body to prevent bed sores... "He was so amazed to see the colorful streets, the goods," she said. "He says the world is prettier now" than it was 19 years ago, when Poland was still under communist rule. "I could not talk or do anything, now...

A Polish man has woken up from a 19-year coma to find the Communist party no longer in power and food no longer rationed, Polish TV reports. Railway worker Jan Grzebski, 65, fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988. "Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin," he told Polish television. He credits his survival to his wife, Gertruda, who cared for him. Doctors gave him only two or three years to live after the accident. A comatose...

WARSAW (AFP) - A Pole who spent 19 years in a coma has woken up and will now have to adapt to a country where the communists are no longer in power, a television station announced Friday. Railwayman Jan Grzebski fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988, the private channel Polsat said. In an interview, Grzebski said that he owed his survival to his wife, Gertruda. "She's the one who always took care of me. She saved my life," he said. Grzebski was a father of four at the time of the accident. He...