Firefighter Emerges From a Lost Decade (after brain damage/"mute")

[rainbow4321]

http://www.baytownsun.com/wire.lasso?report=/dynamic/stories/F/FIREFIGHTER_RECOVERY

Nearly 9 1/2 years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He asked for his wife.

<snip>

"How long have I been away?" Herbert asked. "We told him almost 10 years," the uncle said. "He thought it was only three months."

Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, was fighting a house fire Dec. 29, 1995, when the roof collapsed, burying him under debris. After going without air for several minutes, Herbert was comatose for 2 1/2 months and has undergone therapy ever since.

News accounts in the days and years after his injury describe Herbert as blind and with little, if any, memory. Video shows him receiving physical therapy but apparently unable to communicate and with little awareness of his surroundings.

[saracat]

1. Unfortunately some loon will now use this as "proof"

Terri Shiavo should have been "saved"!

[FreedomAngel82]

6. Sadly

I'm happy for this man though. Imagine waking up leaving 1995 when Bill Clinton was president and waking up in 2005 with the new moron.

[Bo]

2. Neocons are comparing this to Terry

That it was possible for her to come back from her injuries

[uppityperson]

3. Great to have someone recover, different brain damages

Some brain damage you can recover from, especially if you still have a brain. Thanks for the good news.

[Worst Username Ever]

4. Boy is he going to be surprised.

Hey, the twin towers are gone. We're at war with people who had nothing to do with it. The economy sucks. Your benefits have been slashed. A cokehead is president. Your house is worth 3 times what it was worth because no one knows what else to do with their money other than buy up real estate stock. Those people who you used to call "religious nuts" are in fact a powerful group in washington. You can't eat fish anymore. Gas is 2.40 a gallon.

[leftchick]

5. that was my thought as well

falls asleep in the halcyon Clinton years and wakes up in a bush nightmare! yeesh!

[FreedomAngel82]

7. That will be weird to explain

Wow. Talk about an emotional journey he'll take.

[rainbow4321]

8. "Herbert's sons were 14, 13, 11 and 3 when he was injured."

Can't even imagine going thru something like that. "Missing" 10 yrs of your kids' lives.
Wonder how slowly the health care people will have to re-introduce him to the world (HIS world and the "outside" world)so as not to overwhelm him.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Sounds like the plot of 'Goodbye Lenin'.

Wonder how long they'll take to break it to him.

[dhinojosa]

10. Brain damaged for 10 years, firefighter makes astounding recovery

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/05/03/firefighter.speaks.ap/index.html

ORCHARD PARK, New York (AP) -- Ten years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He perked up.

"I want to talk to my wife," Donald Herbert said out of the blue Saturday. Staff members of the nursing home where he has lived for more than seven years raced to get Linda Herbert on the telephone.

It was the first of many conversations the 44-year-old patient had with his wife, four sons and other family and friends during a 14-hour stretch, Herbert's uncle, Simon Manka said.

"How long have I been away?" Herbert asked.

"We told him almost 10 years," the uncle said. "He thought it was only three months."

[WI_DEM]

11. freepers will use this as evidence that Schivo should have

been kept alive, even though the circumstances and conditions of the patients are entirely different.

[htuttle]

13. Obviously they will -- that's why it's "News"

And that's why CNN covered it.

[Ganja Ninja]

14. Here's a link to their thread.

They're all too predictable. :crazy:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1395881/posts#comment?q=1

[Hav]

16. hahahah

Perhaps an idea for a screen play:
Terri Schiavo dies. She stays around a while contacting comotose patients in the "spirit" and counsels them, telling them to hold on and fight. And every now and then, one of them wakes up.


2 posted on 05/03/2005 8:06:58 AM PDT by Enterprise (Abortion and "euthanasia" - the twin destroyers of the Democrat Party.)

[Ganja Ninja]

17. That's got Disney written all over it.

:puke:

[Bleacher Creature]

20. Them be some smart freepers!!!!

I only wish I had the natural intelligence to make an accurate diagnose and to compare two people's health all based on a headline. And as they said in the thread, Chief Resident Rush was on the radio confirming their diagnosis.

[Megahurtz]

21. Hahahahahahahaha!!! And.............

:puke:

[Hav]

15. wow

How could you know that....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1395879/posts

[efhmc]

12. Very intriguing.

[AliB]

18. Was he in a PVS?

I don't think so. A patient who remains in a PVS and does not show any sign of improvement after one month has only a tiny chance chance of having any meaningful neurologic recovery. If no improvement is shown after three months then the chance of any meaningful neurologic recovery is essentially zero. This is a topic commonly addressed in medicine and the research to back it up is published in reputable medical journals. This links to an article originally published in medscape.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=653

The firefighter may have been brain damaged, but the article 'conveniently' leaves out whether or not he was diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. Many many people suffer from brain damage (ie stroke victims). But if part of the cortex is still functional the brain can adapt and improvements in function can occur over time (although after ten years it is indeed rare). Terri Shaivo effectively had no functional cortex. She was a living body with a living brain STEM.

To make an analogy between the cases is a distortion of the facts. Funny how the 'liberal media' always seem to slant stories toward the conservative agenda.

[uppityperson]

19. There are different kinds of brain damage, here's examples

The brain is a very complex set of organs. It is not just one big glop of glup up in your head. There are several distinct parts that do several distinct things. Some are involved with basic life functions (breathing, blood flow, digestion), some with emotions, or senses, or thinking, or speech, etc. There are also several different ways the brain can get hurt. What the result of a brain injury depends on what part got hurt how and how it recovered.

Saying they are the same is like comparing someone with a heart attack to someone with gallstones. In 1 case, medicine, rest, gradual recovery are needed and no one progresses the exact same as anyone else. In the 2nd case, the end result is often removing the gall bladder, to repeat no gall bladder is there after surgery.

It has nothing to do with a feeding tube. A feeding tube is used to get nutrients into the stomach when a person cannot swallow. "Feeding tube" is becoming some sort of boogeyman word and it is about as threatening or awful as a washcloth being used for someone who can't take a shower. But I digress and rant. Sorry. Back to the topic.

It has to do with the fact that the part of her brain that was involved with anything beyond mere cellular survival was gone, missing, not there. The part of his brain concerned with his problem was there, just missing the linkages.

Another simile: If you remove the gas line from a car, the car won't go very well, will only roll downhill and stop when you remove the outside energy source whether it be pushing or gravity. If you remove the part of the exhaust system between the engine and the tail pipe the car will go not very well, but it will go.

[underpants]

22. No and Rush left that out accentuating "BRAIN DAMAGED"

Letting the listeners make that connection without him (they) actually having to state it, as is the MO.

Welcome to DU

:hi:

[daleo]

23. Here are some key phrases:

"...he ended up blind with little, if any, memory. He was largely mute and showed little awareness of his surroundings."

- "little if any memory" means some memory, and some consciousness or they wouldn't have said little instead of none.
- "largely mute" means he must have spoken at times (else they would have said mute).
- "showed little awareness" means he must have shown awareness at times (else they would have said showed no awareness).

"Staff members at the nursing facility recognized the change in Herbert, Manka said, when they heard him speaking and "making specific requests.""
- he must have spoken at times previously, because they were surprised about him "making specific requests", not just speaking.

"The nursing home and the family have declined to describe his condition since then or discuss medical details of the case."
- there must be a reason to remain vague on details, such as more specificity would make it clear he wasn't analogous to Shiavo.

"None of these people were in a "persistent vegetative state" like Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman whose feeding-tube case raised anguished end-of-life ethical discussions."
- surprisingly, the story mentions this eventually.

[Moderator]

24. kick

[highnooner]

25. 'I want to talk to my wife': coma victim breaks decade of silence

'I want to talk to my wife': coma victim breaks decade of silence
By Helen McCormack

05 May 2005

For almost 10 years, following an accident that left him severely brain damaged, Donald Herbert was virtually silent, could barely see, and had no memory of his former life, his wife, or four children. For his family, the point must have come where they never expected to speak with him again.

But the 44-year-old former firefighter, badly injured in a fire in 1995, astounded doctors when on Saturday he suddenly looked up from the nursing home in Buffalo, New York, and told staff: "I want to talk to my wife."

For the next 14 hours, that is all he did do, without sleep, after staff raced to get his wife Linda on the phone, and his family rushed to his side. "How long have I been away?" he asked his family. They told him almost a decade. He thought it had been a couple of months.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=635684

[In_The_Wind]

26. Why ask "why"

:toast:

[LiberalVoice]

27. "He has communicated since and has had moments of clarity...

...but has not returned to the level of communication he was at on Saturday."

Thats just whacky...That someone can wake up after ten years and simply ask for their wife, talk for 14 hours straight, pass out for 30 hours and then not abe able to communicate normally since. Weirdness.

[cornermouse]

28. How shall I put this?

In simple terms, his some of his higher brain cells were still somewhat intact and uninjured. The connection between his brain and his body was broken or disrupted. And it only took 10 years to heal enough to come back for 14 hours after which time, he appears to have returned to a lower level of consciousness.

There is no basis for comparison to someone whose higher level brain cells are dead.

[Cooley Hurd]

29. Thank you - I'm waiting for the Schiavo squad to pipe up and say...

...this somehow proves that there was hope for Terri's recovery. This guy wasn't in a persistent vegetative state. In fact, they showed him on the news last night (pre-re-awakening) walking with assistance. Terri Schiavo was never able to do such a thing. Not... even... close.

[cornermouse]

30. Yep.

I figured it would be coming.

[Ian David]

31. Re-frame this in term's of Bush's "Futile Care Law" in Texas

See:

TX: Baby at center of life support fight dies
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1444334

[Cooley Hurd]

35. I'm not sure what you mean...

:shrug:

[Ian David]

41. Bush's law allows hospitals to end life support against parents' wishes

A terminally ill infant at the center of a life support fight died Wednesday while still receiving full medical treatment.

Six-month-old Knya Dismuke-Howard had leukemia that spread to her brain. Doctors at Memorial Hermann Children's hospital said continued care would be futile and a hospital ethics committee decided last week to remove her from life support Monday, despite objections from her family.

Knya also had multiple-organ failure and a serious bacterial infection and was on morphine to relieve pain. She was diagnosed with leukemia five months ago.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee faxed letters to Memorial Hermann and Texas Children's hospital Monday, asking that Memorial Hermann reconsider or that Texas Children's assume care. About three dozen people protested the hospital's decision on Tuesday. Some held signs that said "euthanasia is not ethical" and "thou shalt not kill." Jackson Lee has said she plans to write legislation that would allow parents to keep a hospital from removing life support from their sick child.

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1444334

[leftchick]

32. for the freeps....

brain DEAD does NOT equal brain Damaged!

[Merlin]

33. GODAMIT! He is NOT a "Coma Victim"

True, he WAS in a coma for a few months 10 years ago. But over the past decade he has been alert and aware and responsive to those around him, although he is blind and has been unable to speak and I guess unable to write.

It pisses me off that the media cannot get this simple damn fact straight. There is a huge difference between being in a coma and being where he's been for a decade.

Further, there is NO COMPARISON whatsoever with his condition and that of Shiavo who was wholly non-responsive to external stimuli, and who could make vocal sounds.

[etherealtruth]

37. Thank you, this has been ticking me off

Once again the information is framed to present a very specific point of view.

[LosinIt]

34. Unfortunately, local talk radio just said he has gone silent again

they think it was a special combination of drugs that they had given him

[3161 worker]

36. The truth will come out

Drugs or no drugs someone will fess up.

[ret5hd]

40. i dont get what you mean...fess up to what?

[GOPBasher]

38. This is a sad story.

:cry:

[Doohickie]

39. I notice he is at the "Father Baker Manor"

I think ol' Father Baker is buckin' for sainthood. Maybe this "miracle" will put him over the top.

[jazzjunkysue]

42. So, there's hope for **?