Man trapped in 23-year 'coma' reveals horror of being unable to tell doctors he was conscious

Mail Online ^ | November 23, 2009 | Allan Hall

[NYer]

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 range of coma tests before reluctantly 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 described the moment as 'my second birth'. Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen.

Mr Houben said: 'All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.'

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who 'saved' him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys.

'Medical advances caught up with him,' said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world.

The disclosure will also renew the right-to-die debate over whether people in comas are truly unconscious. Rom said he wants to enjoy life again - now that his friends and family know he's not in a coma after all

Mr Houben, a former martial arts enthusiast, was paralysed in 1983.

Doctors in Zolder, Belgium, used the internationally accepted Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his eye, verbal and motor responses. But each time he was graded incorrectly.

[1951Boomer]

I well remember the day Terry Schiavo died. I have since regarded that day as one of our nation’s most barbaric.

[Red Badger]

You're dead!

No I'm Not!

Yes you are!...............

[sionnsar]

I am putting in my living will that someone is to make sure that the TV left is on and changed to all worthwhile shows in the event that I am in a “coma”.

Remembering the wasteland that American teeheevee was many years ago (as I gradually turned away from program after program, until there were only three... then two... then one... and finally none), you might want to rethink that. It could become self-inflicted torture.

[SnakeDoctor]

My wife is well aware of the shows I consider worthwhile. No problem.

SnakeDoc

[Celerity]

(posting from phone)

the face transplant patient in France.. didn’t she get her new face from a coma victim ? i seem to recall France’s socialist healthcare keeping coma victims alive to farm spare parts.

this new instance of paralysis is important in this context.