Posted on 03/22/2004 2:57:56 AM PST by phenn
A woman television presenter who was critically injured in the Potters Bar train crash has made a miraculous recovery - nearly two years after doctors declared her brain-dead and said that she should be allowed to die.
Relatives of Tanya Liu, a 34-year-old Taiwanese-born newsreader, say they were told by British doctors that she was in a persistent vegetative state after the crash in May 2002, which killed two of her friends and five other people, and left 76 injured.
Doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in north London said that Ms Liu's injuries were so horrific that there was no hope for her, according to her family. "Four days after the crash, one doctor said that we 'should let her go'," Ms Liu's brother-in-law, Vincent Meng, said last week.
"I told him to go and ask Tanya and if she says yes then we would let her go. But if she cannot answer you, you follow our word. You are just a doctor - you cannot act as a god."
Horrified by the doctor's suggestion, Ms Liu's family sought a second opinion from a Chinese neurosurgeon, who flew to London from Beijing, and said that in her opinion Ms Liu could, in time, recover.
The journalist's most serious injuries were to her skull, which was broken open. The resulting brain damage led to much of her memory being erased. The part of the brain which handles every day decisions, however, remained intact. She also suffered injuries to her liver, spine and ribs.
Less than a month later, her family arranged for Ms Liu to be transferred to Dr Ling Feng's care in Beijing. The Royal Free doctors still believed that she would not recover, according to Mr Meng. "When we transferred Tanya to Beijing, they still predicted on paper that she will be in a persistent vegetative state," he said.
Within two months of the crash, however, in July 2002, Ms Liu regained consciousness. Over the next year, she had to endure six operations - twice for brain surgery - and was not able to stand up unaided until near the end of 2002. Last week, however, her painful journey to rehabilitation was almost complete when she returned to Hong Kong, and declared that she intended to return soon to her work as a television presenter with a local satellite station on a part-time basis.
Ms Liu was on holiday in Britain with two colleagues when the accident happened. The three women were planning to go sightseeing in Cambridge when they boarded the King's Cross to King's Lynn train.
It derailed and mounted the platform at Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. It is believed to have happened when the four-carriage West Anglia Great Northern train, travelling at 96mph, went over a faulty set of points.
Her two companions, Chia Hsin Lin, 30, a student at the University of London, and Chia Chin Wu, 31, a fellow television journalist, were killed instantly.
Ms Liu, who has little recollection of what happened, plans to stay in Hong Kong for two weeks before going to Taiwan to visit the graves and families of her two friends. "Since I have been in hospital I have been thinking of when can I go back to Hong Kong and Taipei," she said. "I felt really bad when I was in bed and couldn't do anything."
A spokesman for the Royal Free said that the hospital could not comment on conversations between doctors and relatives, and could not confirm that any doctor had made the comments alleged by the family.
The spokesman added: "Brain injury is a highly complex area of medicine and one in which it is very difficult to predict the degree and course of any patient's recovery.
"Ms Liu suffered a very severe injury and we were very worried about her future prospects. We have not seen her since she left the Royal Free in 2002 but if various reports of her current condition are reliable, we are delighted for her and for her family and wish her every success."
Members of her family, along with those of the other victims, are still awaiting the results of a Health and Safety Executive report into the causes of the crash. They are also all discussing with lawyers whether to take legal action against Railtrack or Jarvis, the engineering company responsible for track maintenance at the scene of the derailment.
And a bigger pity that the legal deck is stacked against them. The Florida law comes close to court-assisted murder -- and that's exactly what it will be in Terri's case, if she is executed. Terri is not in a vegetative state, although she has been damaged by long medical neglect ordered by Michael Schiavo.
Large Royal Free CYA.
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