Doctors Misdiagnose Patient Thought to be in 23 Year 'Persistent Vegetative State'
November 23, 2009 (daily.co.uk.)
A car crash victim diagnosed as being in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time.
Rom Houben was paralysed but had no way of letting doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying. 'I dreamed myself away,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state. He added: 'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear.'
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.
