Agony of Waiting for Coma Emergence After Severe Brain Injury

By Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.
Call me at 800-992-9447

In the Fall of 2010, I began a project to create an archive of brain injury stories, not just narratives, but actual video interviews that would be published on the internet, to create a permanent archive of what others with brain injury and their families went through. I began that project with the performance of Lethan Candlish's "Who Am I, Again?" What drew me to Lethan's play in the first place was my connection to the part of the story where he spoke in his mother's voice. He begins: "My mother was in her home office when she got the call." Then it is her voice he is acting:

"‘It was late, after 8:00, I was doing some paperwork when the telephone rang. I answered and learned that my son had been involved in a serious automobile accident. He was in a coma? He had been life-flighted to Geisinger Medical Center?!

"And there are moments when the world will freeze. Thoughts, emotions, it doesn’t make sense. Frozen, as you try to comprehend what you just heard but the world continues to turn and I need to tell his father: ‘He was ….’ I put down the phone, collected my things, turned out all the lights and made sure to take the dog out before I left. I didn’t know when I would return.’

"See my son’s body laid out on the table, tied down with wires and tubes. Silent. Still. And I said Lethan you will live, hear me? You will live. And I closed my eyes and began to pray.

"A doctor appeared behind me ‘Are you alright, maam?’ Huh? He's a tall man, long white coat, full white beard, clipboard in hand and these eyes that knew things.

"‘I’m fine’, ‘Well, my son was involved in a car… I was praying because I am a clinical psychologist and I had read several blind studies that have shown the healing effects of prayer.

"‘Maam, you don’t need to be blind to pray.’ "

Lethan switches back to his voice:

My father spent that first night in the hospital sitting next to my son’s bed once he had been given a room. Then in his father's voice:

"I didn’t sleep a wink, couldn’t sleep in those hospital chairs. And I knew you would live. I didn’t know why I knew. I didn’t know how I knew. I knew it didn’t make any sense that I knew but I knew that for once in your life you were going to listen to your mother. "

Lethan did live, to be the first of our TBI Voices. We now have over 500 videos and over 500 written blogs on these voices of brain injury. We hope that by listening, you like Lethan's father, you will know.

 

Contact Attorney Gordon Johnson: 1-800-992-9447

This site is brought to you by the advocates of the Brain Injury Law Group, a community of plaintiff's trial lawyers across the United States united by a common interest in serving the rights of persons with traumatic brain injuries and a common commitment to fully understanding the anatomic, medical and psychological aspects of TBI.