Free Republic

A Spokane man watched in desperation as his dying friend struggled for breath, but he couldn't get immediate assistance from professionals just inside Spokane's Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Instead those VA staffers dialed 911 to get help for the man in the hospital parking lot. "Calling the fire department was quicker than getting equipment and bringing it back out or finding someone who could offer the medical assistance," said hospital director Joe Manley. Paramedics arrived in four minutes, according to Spokane Fire Department dispatch logs. Clinton L. "Foxx" Fuller, 83, of Spokane, died at Deaconess Medical Center, an hour and...

We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his...