Coma victim conscious for 23 years

Deathmage · Nov 25, 2009

Remove all ads!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/24/2751424.htm

Coma victim actually conscious for 23 years

Posted Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:06am AEDT
Updated Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:01pm AEDT
Misdiagnosed: Rom Houben.

Silent scream: Rom Houben lies paralysed at his home (RTV)

* Video: 'Coma' victim found to be conscious 23yrs later (ABC News)
* Video: Man trapped in body for decades (7pm TV News NSW)

A Belgian man thought to have been in a coma for 23 years has told of his "second birth" after doctors realised he was in fact conscious, a German weekly reports.

Medical staff at a hospital in Liege, in eastern Belgium, believed Rom Houben had been left in a vegetative state by a serious car accident in 1983, but he was simply paralysed and unable to communicate.

The former engineering student and martial arts enthusiast, now 46, told Der Spiegel that he meditated to pass the long years trapped in his own body.

Mr Houben's true condition was discovered three years ago when new tests at the University of Liege found that his brain was still functioning.

Using a specially adapted computer to type messages, Mr Houben has been able to describe the ordeal he endured for more than two decades.

"I would scream, but no sound would come out," he said.

"I will never forget the day they finally discovered what was wrong - it was my second birth."

He could hear what was being said around him throughout, but was unable to respond.

"I became the witness to my own suffering as doctors and nurses tried to speak to me and eventually gave up," he said.

The worst moment came when his mother and sister told him of the death of his father and though he wanted to weep, his body remained motionless.

Cut off from the world, he passed his time in thought.

"I dreamed of a better life all the time, he said.

"Frustration is too small a word to describe what I went through."

His story emerged following an article in a medical journal by the neurologist Steven Laureys, who told Der Spiegel that the problem was it was very difficult to change a coma diagnosis.

"Every patient should be tested at least 10 times before they are diagnosed as being in a vegetative state," he said.

But Mr Houben's mother, Fina Houben, never gave up hope.

"I always knew our son was still there," she said.

Mr Houben is still unable to move, but he can read thanks to a device set up over his bed, and he communicates through a keyboard.

"I want to read, to talk to my friends with the computer and to live life now people know I'm not dead," he said.

- AFP
Click to expand...

Anyways: this is pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. It's like a nightmare come true. 23 years of isolation, of staying basically in the same bed, of not being able to talk to anyone, of watching people give up to you when you want to scream I'm still here. I think I'd go insane from that. It's terrifying to think how many of those victims were, or are, still conscious, although now that they have those machines, future victim might have a better chance of communicating their wishes. So that's a good thing...

Any thoughts? What would you say if you were hocked up to that machine and was able, for the first time in 23 years, to actually communicate to someone?

Aldeth the Foppish Idiot · Nov 25, 2009

I agree it would be torture to go through that. I also agree that while something like this occurs veryy infrequently, it probably isn't the first time it has happened - it's just the first time that we've realized that they weren't really in a vegetative state.

The real problem was that he was misdiagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state and not paralyzed. The main reason I think this is very rare is most people when they are paralyzed are not completely paralyzed like this guy. Even severe forms of paralysis where you are paralyzed from the neck down, you'd still be able to talk. I'd say that the vast majority of people who have been diagnosed with being in a persistent vegetative state actually are.

Log in or Sign up

Coma victim conscious for 23 years

Deathmage Arrr! Veteran

Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran