Posted on 07/09/2006 7:59:40 PM PDT by churchillbuff
The case of Terry Wallis, an Arkansas man who suddenly woke up from a 19-year long coma, has raised new questions about the death of Terri Schiavo, who died last year after a court ordered her feeding tube to be disconnected.
Wallis fell into his coma in 1984 after a serious car accident. At the time he was 19.
According to LifeSiteNews.com, the doctors who have studied the Wallis case have published their initial conclusions in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The report explains that during the car accident Walls’ nerve connections in his brain were severed, putting him in a minimally conscious state and rendering him a quadriplegic. A young husband with a newborn child, Wallis was considered a hopeless case, especially considering that his family could not pay the $120,000 needed to consult a neurologist about any possibility of recovery. However in 2003, during one of the regular visits of his mother, who had regularly visited him at the Rehabilitation Centre in Mountain View, Arkansas, he made what seemed a sudden recovery, and spoke “mom”, his first word in 19 years.
Imaging expert Henning Voss and neurologist Nicholas Schiff of the Weil Medical College at the University of Cornell believe Wallis’ brain “rewired itself” and slowly re-grew the nerve connections that were devastated as a result of his accident.
Doctors at Wallis’ rehabilitation center believe the recovery is due in part to visits by his family, which could have acted as a kind of mental therapy for his recovery.
“He now seems exactly like his old self,” says Jerry Wallis, Terry’s father. Over the 19 years of Terry’s coma, both Jerry and his mother Angilee had doubts at some time or another about whether or not it was better for Terry to be alive. However, now both are glad they never caved into those doubts. Since then they have seen their son make strides in his recovery with the ambition of walking for his daughter. “He very often tells us how glad he is to be alive,” says Terry’s father.
LifeSiteNews.com noted that the Wallis case stands in stark opposition to the case of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, who received no therapy from her philandering husband after her 1990 collapse. She was instead dehydrated to death by court order in March 2005. Although some doctors claim that Terri Schiavo could not have made Terry Wallis’ recovery since she was in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), witnesses such as former nurse Carla Iyer maintained that with therapy, Schiavo, who said words like, “mommy, help me”, could have indeed recovered over time.
In a BBC interview Dr. Ralf Clauss, a scientist in nuclear medicine and one of the drug researchers, stated that, “For every damaged area of the brain, there is a dormant area, which seems to be a sort of protective mechanism. The damaged tissue is dead, there’s nothing you can do,” he explained. “But it’s the dormant areas which ‘wake up’.”
They could've titled that better. Reminds me of "Mother of Disabled Child Charges Aide With Battery".
As much as Terri dying tore me to pieces emotionally, Hugh Finn was much worse for me. His wife now makes a living, doesn't she, from speaking about brain disorders? She really was some kind of wife. The kind you never want to have....
Would Jeb Bush have declared he had done all he could if this were a member of his family, instead of Terri Schiavo?
My belief is that he could have, should have, taken Terri into protective custody. I base that on the highly suspicious judgement in this case, including the adulterous husband (shacked up with another woman by whom he has two children), his "right-to-death", very loony lawyer, Greer, a warped excuse for a judge, IMO, and the tie-ins to the hospice and other Florida judges, etc.
Acknowledging the separation of powers, when a State Governor, sworn to protect his people, learns that, through evil means, one of them will be starved to death, an honorable Governor will step in and take over.
Feel free to set me straight if I'm wrong.
Memory Eternal for your wife!!
She's gonna help me reach the other side...
Jeb Bush could and should have sent in troops to the killing hospice, and rescued Terri. A murder was being committed under color of law, and he chose not to stop it.
Well hello Florida newbie. Odd that you get so much pleasure from pouring salt in open wounds, but then your stilted post smacks of an agenda. Friend of Mikey or Georgieboy? Give it a rest? Bwahahaha, how ironic of you, how very mikeyish ... remember how he insisted she needed to be allowed to go on to her rest?
I don't see the medical connection to these two cases.
This guy had some nerve damage. Nerves overtime do have a chance to heal themsevles.
A major portion of Terri's cerebal cortex had disintegrated. There was empty space were most of her Cerebellum used to be. X-rays of her brain showed this. Saying this could heal itself would be like saying you had a arm chopped off, but believed a new one would be able to grow back.
Yes, some of us, at least, do. What's that got to do with another human being(s) deciding when our life on earth should end? Just imagine that I could have an input on whether you should continue living on this earth...or dying, when, hopefully, you will have no more suffering.
Terri Schiavo's husband, who we must remember as choosing to live and love another woman and have a family with her, got the ball rolling to end his wife's life. Greer bought his "proof" of her wishes and attorney Felos couldn't have been more delighted to assist, IMO.
Most of those who participated in ending Terri Schiavo's life are, in fact, people she never knew.
For you and those who think the same way, you are willing to have strangers decide if you should live or die.
Have I misunderstood you?
"Imagine the hell she went through when her husband visited her in private. I'd hate to know the what he spoke to her. He HATED her and wanted her DEAD."
````
There WAS such a difference in her pictures AFTER M. Schiavo got fully custody of Terri = $'s.
Packing her off to die, no sunlight, no conversation, no nothin. Not medication when she was ill. Day after day he did this to her and its amazing that her parents got responses from her at all. We watched as PURE EVIL took place. Husbands "right" to kill his wife.
I remember what happened. The state cops should have had orders to overcome the local cops with force, if necessary.
"Don't you people believe in an afterlife? Terri Schiavo is suffering no more. Let her go..."
With no lessons learned? Not hardly.
There are Judge Greers and M. Shiavo's out there embolden by Terri's murder rather than under rocks where they belong.
IMO he could have saved Terri Schiavo's life. I wouldn't vote for him to be a dog-catcher. And while I'm at it, regardless of my twelve years of Catholic education, Bishop Lynch (St. Petersburg, FL) took an anti-life stance in this case.
To add insult to injury, Michael Schiavo and Jody Centonze were married in a Catholic Church, once he won his case to have Terry, his wife, starved to death.
My, my. What to think.
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