Associated Press
Donald Herbert, a firefighter with brain damage from a 1995 fire.
Posted on 05/04/2005 6:23:04 PM PDT by neverdem
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.
Although recoveries like Mr. Herbert's are widely publicized and romanticized in movies, the number of well-documented cases is rare. Most patients who regain consciousness do so within a few years, and those whose injuries, like Mr. Herbert's, are believed to have resulted from a prolonged loss of oxygen to the brain are usually given the worst prognosis.
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."
In limited studies, researchers have found that about 15 percent of people who suffer brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation recover some awareness in the first few months, and that about 50 percent of those who suffer traumatic brain injuries, like a blow to the head, recover in the first year. Few people in either group recover after two years.
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."
Associated Press
Donald Herbert, a firefighter with brain damage from a 1995 fire.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
ping
Think what the ramifications would be!
Whew!
LVM
I wonder what Judge Greer thinks.
It is a shame he is to be denied the euphoric experience of being starved to death. If only he received the proper care! He could be so much more peaceful and radiant!
Good thing Felos wasn't hanging around his neighborhood, huh?
"Murky Area" = Faith
I would like to email this story to him.
God bless him.
If only Terri had been so lucky. :(
"'Murky Area' = Faith"
Murky area = place where scientific research has yet to penetrate
The lack of a naturalistic explanation does not mean you should jump for a supernatural fairy-tale explanation.
Why are you looking for a fight? And why do you care?
BUMP
" 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,...."
IIRC- Dr Fins supported Michael Schiavo.
mer·cy 
( P ) Pronunciation Key (mûr
s
)
n. pl. mer·cies
If the reporter had followed the Terri Schiavo case, he/she would recognize that as nothing more than an involuntary reflex, and no indication that he will ever recover.
Simple linguistic slip up?
I don't think so.
LOL!
How are you?
Tis time to start the Terri Schiavo murder investigation.
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