By Alessandra Suuberg, Decency LLC
Readers are likely familiar with fictional storylines from books, movies, or television shows about patients who spend years in a coma and later wake up.
How often do these awakenings happen in real life, and how are long-term comatose states handled in medical (and legal) practice?
And, in contrast, how have loved ones and providers made the decision to end life support in cases that did not end with regained consciousness?
The following are some of the real-life cases that made headlines in the past:
Munira Abdulla (UAE): In 1991, 32-year-old Munira Abdulla suffered brain injuries in a car crash, and doctors reportedly thought that she might never become fully conscious again. In 2018, she showed signs of recovery. Her son reported that, since awakening, she was able to communicate in familiar situations. He told the media that he “never gave up on [his mother] because [he] always had a feeling that one day she would wake up.”
Kate Bainbridge (UK): Kate Bainbridge lapsed into a coma at age 26 after a flu-like illness. She later woke up and, 12 years after her illness, was reportedly using a wheelchair and talking again.
Archie Battersbee (UK): In 2022, 12-year-old Archie Battersbee died following withdrawal of life support and a four-month legal case. He had been found unconscious at home with a cord around his neck, and having sustained traumatic head injuries. Doctors initiated court proceedings, believing it was in the patient’s best interests to end life support, though his parents were opposed. The court ultimately ruled that doctors could legally stop treatment. Battersbee’s parents were ultimately unsuccessful in a series of appeals, including an application to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2023, the UN Rights of Persons With Disabilities Committee agreed to consider a complaint that Battersbee’s rights were violated when treatment was withdrawn.
Anthony Bland (UK): In 1989, 18-year-old Tony Bland was crushed in a football stadium disaster and experienced hypoxia resulting in irreversible brain damage. Bland’s doctor and family wished to withdraw life support. Airedale NHS Trust sought advice from the courts regarding the legality of withdrawing support. Treatment was stopped and Bland died in 1993.
Riaan Bolton (UK): Riaan Bolton suffered severe brain trauma due to a car crash in 2003 and was estimated to have a “5 per cent chance of recovery.” He reportedly experienced improvements immediately after receiving zolpidem. His parents reported in 2006 that he had begun responding to questions and was able to drink through a straw.
Nancy Cruzan (USA): Nancy Cruzan was in a vegetative state after experiencing oxygen deprivation for six to twenty minutes in the context of a car accident. Her parents petitioned for termination of artificially administered hydration and nutrition. She died in 1990 after her case reached the U.S. Supreme Court and artificial feedings were stopped.
Gary Dockery (USA): In 1988, Gary Dockery was shot while working as a police officer and fell into a “coma-like state.” In 1996, he woke up and spoke “for several hours” before again losing consciousness, and dying the following year.
Thomas Edison (USA): Inventor Thomas Edison reportedly woke up from a coma hours before his death and made the statement, “It is very beautiful over there.”
Elaine Esposito (USA): Elaine Esposito lapsed into a coma at age six, following an appendectomy. She remained in a coma for 37 years, cared for at home by her mother, who “resisted efforts to institutionalize her only daughter and never complained of her burden.” Esposito passed away at age 44.
Andrew Goette (USA): Andrew Goette was put into a medically induced coma after suffering a heart attack. His wife reported that his prognosis was initially “dire,” with specialists suggesting that Goette would not wake up. Days later, as nurses began to remove his sedatives, Goette “opened his eyes and showed no apparent neurological problems.” He recovered in order to witness the birth of his son via FaceTime.
Jan Grzebski (Poland): Railway worker Jan Grzebski fell into a coma in 1988 after being hit by a train, and doctors reportedly predicted at that time that he would have two to three years to live. Speaking to the media after waking up 19 years later, Grzebski credited his survival to his wife, and commented regarding modern life: “Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin.” His wife reportedly cared for him during his coma, moving her husband every hour in order to prevent bed sores.
Donald Herbert (USA): Firefighter Donald Herbert sustained a brain injury in 1995 “when the roof of a burning home collapsed on him.” In 2005, he woke up and spoke for 14 hours, after his doctor began to give him drugs ordinarily used for Parkinson’s disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression. He continued to interact and speak. He died of pneumonia in 2006.
Thomas Hill (USA): In 2016, personal trainer Thomas Hill experienced a “freak accident” on the road and was put in an induced coma for two months. After waking up, he also became a cancer survivor and went back to work at his gym, “training and motivating his clients and himself.”
Rom Houben (Belgium): For 23 years, Rom Houben was fully paralyzed but conscious after a near-fatal car crash. Doctors reportedly used an accepted scale to monitor his brain function but “missed signs that his brain was still functioning.” As of 2009, Houben was communicating using one finger and a specialized touchscreen on his wheelchair.
Evel Knievel (USA): Daredevil Evel Knievel was in a coma for a month following a failed jump at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He survived and lived to age 60.
Trenton McKinley (USA): Trenton McKinley suffered brain trauma when he fell from a car trailer. Doctors said that he would not recover, but McKinley “showed signs of awareness” a day before his life support was scheduled to end, and after his parents had already signed paperwork to donate his organs. As of 2018, at age 13, McKinley was in recovery, “walking and talking, even reading and doing maths."
Jahi McMath (USA): In 2013, Jahi McMath was declared brain dead “after a hemorrhagic complication following complex oropharyngeal surgery.” Her mother fought to maintain life support. McMath died in 2018 “from abdominal complications” after living in a coma for more than four years.
Abdelhak Nouri (Netherlands): In 2017, football player Abdelhak Nouri collapsed during a game and suffered “severe and permanent brain damage,” later said to be due to a lack of “adequate medical attention after he suffered a heart attack.” In 2020 he was reported to have woken up after two years and nine months in a coma.
Wanda Palmer (USA): Wanda Palmer was in a coma for two years after being beaten by her brother in 2020. Palmer regained consciousness in 2022 and “was able to communicate with detectives one word at a time” and reveal her attacker’s identity.
Martin Pistorius (South Africa): Martin Pistorius started to lose control of his body at age 12 and “spent more than a decade at home and in day care centers unable to move or speak.” After waking up, he reported: “For so many years, I was like a ghost. I could hear and see everything, but it was like I wasn’t there. I was invisible.” He says that a “new worker at his care center” was “the catalyst who changed everything,” after she would sit and talk with him and “began to pick up on tiny signals that made her realize he was more aware than people thought." As of 2015, Pistorius was married and working as a web designer.
Karen Ann Quinlan (USA): In 1975, Karen Ann Quinlan passed out after consuming alcohol and Valium, and doctors later determined that she was in a “persistent vegetative state.” Quinlan’s parents wished to have her removed from the respirator that she needed in order to breathe. Following a legal battle, Quinlan was removed from the ventilator. She lived for another nine years and died of pneumonia in 1985.
Tafida Raqeeb (UK): Tafida Raqeeb was put on life support following a traumatic brain injury at age five. In 2019, she was in a coma after a blood vessel ruptured in her brain. Barts Health NHS Trust “tried to block Tafida being taken abroad for more treatment, saying ending her life support was in her best interests.” Her parents brought her to Italy for treatment after winning permission to do so in court. In 2020, Raqeeb was reportedly being weaned off of a ventilator.
Hassan Rasouli (Canada): Hassan Rasouli was kept alive in a coma after undergoing surgery to remove a benign brain tumor, after “he developed a serious bacterial infection and suffered a massive injury to his brain and spinal cord.” Doctors told Rasouli’s family that they planned to take him off of a ventilator and put him in palliative care, but his family opposed this decision, resulting in a legal battle. His family was successful and reported in 2014 that Rasouli was “respond[ing] to stimulation and ha[d] some ability to communicate.”
Michael Schumacher (France/Switzerland): Racing driver Michael Schumacher was put into an induced coma in December 2013 after a skiing accident. Months later, a spokeswoman announced that he had woken up. Doctors had reportedly begun taking steps to bring him out of his coma in February 2014.
Annie Shapiro (Canada): Annie Shapiro entered a vegetative state following a stroke and remained unresponsive for roughly three decades, until the early 1990s. Her husband continued to care for her, and she eventually woke up and recovered. Shapiro died in 2003.
Ebony Stevenson (UK): Ebony Stevenson was a put into an induced coma after experiencing seizures and being rushed to the hospital. The 18-year-old college student’s seizures were reportedly caused by pre-eclampsia, a complication related to pregnancy. She gave birth to a daughter by emergency caesarean and was brought out of her coma three days later.
Louis Viljoen (South Africa): Louis Viljoen reportedly woke up from a persistent vegetative state after receiving a sleeping pill to “control involuntary spasms.” He had been hit by a lorry while riding his bike. After taking zolpidem, he “began to speak for the first time in five years.” The prescriber, Family GP Wally Nel, told the media in 2006, “Since Louis, I have treated more than 150 brain-damaged patients with zolpidem and have seen improvements in about 60 per cent of them.”
Martha von Bulow (USA): Martha von Bulow was found unconscious in her Rhode Island mansion in 1980. The heiress was reportedly “kept alive on feeding tubes at an estimated cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,” but “never regained consciousness.” Famous legal battles in this case related to prosecutors’ claims that von Bulow’s husband had injected his wife with insulin “twice in an effort to inherit much of her fortune.” Her husband was ultimately acquitted.
Terry Shiavo (USA): In 1990, Terry Shiavo entered a “persistent vegetative state” after cardiac arrest. Following a highly publicized legal battle, in which her parents wished to maintain life support and her husband argued for its termination, the courts determined that Shiavo’s feeding tube could be removed. Her feeding tube was removed in 2005.
Juan Torres (Canada): In 2013, Juan Torres was diagnosed as vegetative at age 19, after choking on vomit at night. Doctors reportedly “expected his status to be permanent.” Torres later woke up. As of 2015, he was using a wheelchair and starting college studies.
Terry Wallis (USA): Terry Wallis woke up in 2003 after living in a coma for 19 years, following near-fatal car accident. Doctors reportedly believed that his family’s “car[ing] for him relentlessly during his coma” helped contribute to his awakening. He died in 2022 at age 57.
Disclaimer: The information and opinions on this site do not include legal advice or the advice of a licensed healthcare provider.