Woman Wakes Up After a 20-Year Coma | The Real Sleeping Beauty | Only Human

[Music] in 1984 18 year-old Sarah Scantlin fell into a coma for 20 years she slept she just lay pretty much unresponsive for twenty years doctors said she would never wake up then in 2005 something extraordinary happened for the first time in twenty years Sarah Sarah's story certainly a story of hope that was a huge ray of Sun beaming through this dark cloud neurologists all over said this is not possible and I said oh yeah you go there and you talk to her and you tell me that this is impossible I don't know why she has come back after 20 years I don't know that anyone can give us an answer this is the story of the real Sleeping Beauty you Hutchinson is a small town in Kansas in the Midwest of America it is an old farming community in a forgotten corner of this empty state in a quiet suburb on the outskirts of town lies golden plains nursing homes it cares for a hundred elderly and infirm residents it is also the home to a medical miracle Sara Scantlin defied medical convention when she woke after being in a coma-like State for twenty years her friends and family had given up all hope that she would return to them doctors had told them she was lost forever we know that after about a year you've kind of reached a plateau in your recovery process there are small changes that can sometimes be a significant availing members but they are minimal it's a lot like somebody very dear to you dies it's the day before the funeral and you never get to go but incredibly Sara awoke after 20 years never before in medical history has somebody been in a coma-like State for so long and started speaking again Laurie Shockley is Sarah's best friend they met at the local high school I had been friends with Sarah since sixth grade we immediately hit it off we became best of friends almost sisters if you will for the last 20 years Laurie has been making the three-hour journey to visit Sarah from her home in Kansas City until recently these visits were the cause of great sadness as she was always greeted by silence over the course of the 20 years I saw very little changes in Sarah every time I went to see her I didn't expect to go in and see anything different and that's one of the things I had to deal with in my own mind is this is as good as it gets [Music] now that sarah has woken Laura's best friend has been returned to her what's new about me today yeah am i no cuz that would make you all to sinner that's funny did you notice I got new glasses yeah do you know why I have new glasses cuz I'm getting off yeah I am that's alright I don't care twenty years in a coma have dramatically affected Sarah's body her joints have seized and her voice is slurred as she is using muscles that have lay dormant for two decades after 20 years of walking into her room to stone cold silence to walk in her room and to hear and say hi Laurie the Sarah that's that's here and with us today is very much the same Sarah that was with us 20 years ago she can talk to you and she can answer you and she can tell you when she's mad and if you write her a letter she'll read every word of it and those are the things that inspire me who's your best friend yeah who's my best friend thank you so much Sara and Lori have a close friendship that has lasted nearly 30 years but it is a relationship that was to change forever on one tragic evening in the autumn of 1984 I remember looking up and telling myself that it wasn't gonna be that bad she was gonna be okay she was gonna be okay and my next thought process was I needed to call her mom immediately [Music] sarah Scantlin amazed the medical community when she started speaking after being in a comatose state for 20 years since Sarah first started talking in January 2005 improvement has been a slow and hard-fought battle but one which she is fighting with extraordinary determination you're look really really nice today today is her father's birthday and she has prepared a surprise for him yeah hey what yeah hey hey bless your heart that's alright that's alright this is the first time that Jim has heard his daughter sing happy birthday in 22 years happy birthday I'll tell mom you saying happy birthday to me okay [Music] the financial strain of looking after sarah has left her parents almost bankrupt they have sold the family home and live on a trailer park with the remainder of their possessions and memories of happier times [Music] there Sarah and her glory in high school she will chain picture her Farrah Fawcett haircut this is my favorite right here she was probably five my picture was 16 those are all the high school pictures her senior dance I've seen you from life was a wonderful figure I never never saw her death in 1984 18 year old Sarah started college it was the beginning of her adult life Sarah's attitude for life was vibrant and she was funny and she had many many friends she was always there for everybody [Music] early in her first term Saira was selected for the college cheerleading squad the dragon dolls I immediately liked her a lot because she was vivacious friendly and outgoing she was one of those people that just captured your heart and I could tell that all the other girls liked her as well on September the 22nd the girls went out to celebrate we had gone out to the local bar called tappers we were just being college kids and partying and having a good time as tappers closed that night we were walking out to the car and i was in front of Sara the next thing I can recall is me getting pulled down out of the way and I saw Sara's body in the air and knew immediately she'd been hit by a car and while she was still in the air another car from the other direction [Music] sheelane she laid lifeless in the middle of the road like a rag doll and my next thought process was I needed to call her mom immediately it was Lori and she was crying and she said mom Sara's been hurt Sara's injuries were so serious that she had to be airlifted to a specialist emergency hospital 40 miles away in Wichita I'm not comprehending anything so I mean I Drive like a madman to Wichita when they arrived at the Wichita hospital Jim and Betsy were informed that Sara's condition was critical the impact with the second car had fractured Sara's skull causing massive brain injuries the brain is the center of all thought and emotion but it is incredibly fragile the skull encases it to protect it if the brain starts to swell due to bruising or bleeding then that protective casing can become a fatal trap Sara had massive hemorrhaging in her frontal lobe which was forming into a blood clot the size of a fist one very common problem following brain injury is swelling of the brain this can occur in its own or it can occur in association with other kinds of damage for example the development of blood clots and the problem with swelling within the skull is that there isn't anywhere for the brain to go the only way to relieve that pressure is by removing a portion of the scrolling taking the clot out [Music] to save Sarah's life her doctors had to perform dangerous surgery I was starting to lose it and I started sobbing uncontrollably I'm just scared to death I was thinking well maybe she she died and they just haven't told us yet and they were in surgery forever and it's well up into the morning before they come out after the surgery had finished Betsy and Jim were allowed in to see their daughter what they faced was every parent's worst nightmare the neurosurgeon setting us down and saying there's a good possibility that Sarah is going to physically survive however the brain was shattered and Sarah as we knew her was dead the life-saving surgery had caused massive brain damage Sarah fell into a deep coma coma means the patient's not responding to their environment we speak to them they don't answer back we pinch them they don't feel the pain they don't do anything very little is known about this condition until recently even leading doctors understood almost nothing about what was happening in coma patients brain patients with brain injuries were kind of a mystic injury didn't really know what was going on in there and it was pretty much just wait and see whether they lived or died what kind of function there was gonna be if they did live coma is a transient state that usually lasts no more than six weeks patients who have not awoken by this time either die or pass into what is known as a vegetative state six weeks after her accident this was the diagnosis given to Sarah Burchett of stays the state of wakefulness without awareness a state in which there's a sleep-wake cycle but there's no evidence solve communication to measure the level of consciousness in brain injured patients doctors use a system called the Glasgow Coma Scale what the Glasgow Coma Scale invites you to do is to look at three aspects of someone's behavior to try to come up with a measure of their conscious level and the scale gives you a score out of 15 patients with a score of 8 or less are considered severe brain injuries tests on Sara showed she was severely brain injured she had a Glasgow Coma Scale of 5 or less because even after she left the hospital she wasn't responsive she wouldn't respond to her environment the longer a patient has been in a coma-like state the less their chance of recovery if you've been in a vegetative state just for a matter of a week or two your chances of regaining awareness are pretty good if you have been in a vegetative state for a year your chances of regaining awareness are very low of the order of of a few percent at best as the week's turned to months hopes that Sarah would ever wake up started to fade she was transferred to the golden plains nursing home where she would lay unresponsive for the next 20 years [Music] Sarah's best friend Lori moved on with her life she moved away and started a family but she always felt responsible for the accident that caused Sarah's brain injuries carried a lot of guilt with me continued to have nightmares at least once a month for approximately 20 years why am I still here in the capacity in which I am here and she's not why was the car directed at her versus myself Sarah's doctors encouraged her friends and family to accept that she would be trapped in a vegetative state forever despite this they tried desperately to wake her pictures constantly putting pictures in front of her and saying do you remember this it hopes that she's going to say oh yeah I remember that or music and again - no response and efforts weren't just confined to her bedside her mother brought her here in a wheelchair thinking if she saw the girls again it was a part of the atmosphere maybe it would bring something back in her when she came I looked in her eyes and I thought she was gone no matter what Farrah's parents or lorry tried they failed to elicit a response from her in deep sadness we gave up and basically just says sara is in such dire straits and so severely injured it's foolish and self-defeating to drain herself any more hoping for the impossible and it's unimaginable the torment that it causes day's became months months became years with somebody in a comatose state like that and there's really no resolution you just hung there like sleeping beauty Sara slept on but there was little hope of a fairytale ending if she ever woke it was likely that the young woman friends and family had known was gone forever even patients who recover from relatively short comas can be affected for the rest of their lives [Music] on the other side of the Atlantic in England lives 28 year old Charlotte Waites she fell into a coma for 23 days following a car accident when she was 18 years old it can be traumatic for the families a brain injury victims to see how they've been affected after Shauna woke up her father Tristan struggled to accept the dramatic changes in his daughter the last year before Shauna's accident she planned with her brother this photograph and this letter which they sent to us it reads thank you for an absolutely wonderful holiday I can't wait till next year massive hugs and kisses love Charlotte the very next time she wrote to me was almost two years later she has just about managed to write my name higgledy-piggledy at the top as you can see but it is now in the hand of probably a 5 or 6 year old with sweet but very innocent little diagrams and messages on it in June 1997 Shana had spent the weekend at Glastonbury music festival I've been a Glastonbury with five friends and we were all in dance music say most of the time we were in dance dance dancing I had an absolutely brilliant time after four days of partying the friends were travelling back to their homes in Brighton suddenly the car hit a crash barrier the driver died instantaneously and the four passengers were seriously injured I went straight through the windscreen landing on the road on my head on that side at night miles an hour fracturing my skull seanny fell into a deep coma her parents were told to expect the worst there were a number of occasions where we were approached jointly and also individually about the possibility that we should let Shauna slip away one particular occasion after about three weeks the senior doctor took me into his office on the side of the unit and I was then put under fairly intensive pressure there's no way you're going to give up there's just no way you're gonna give up far as I'm concerned I'm prolonging her life by keeping on this machine and there's no way we're gonna have it turned off I shall never forget her close to her I wouldn't I don't know how I lived myself now if I had taken the other decision after 23 days trapped in a coma Seana astounded everybody when she started to wake up I just wanted to cry I was just so happy you know it was like how can i it was like I was on cloud nine we are told that if 100 people sustained the injuries that Shauna did 90 would die seven would live a very poor state of existence and three out of the hundred could achieve a recovery something approaching Shauna's first thing that I remember from after Max and was being wheeled into the house at home with no hair I didn't care that I was in a wheelchair I just saw myself in the mirror but no hair he stole my hair where's my hair Khan being allowed home was only the start of her recovery process it was like going back to being a toddler again I had to relearn absolutely everything to walk to even simple things like dress to use the bathroom it was horrible like Sarah Scantlin Shauna had severe injuries to the frontal lobe of her brain the frontal lobe of the brain is really the personality Center patients who have frontal lobe injuries often times are very uninhibited generally you see their pre-injury personality sort of blossom so if they were very outgoing social talkative person they become even more so inhibitions were you know just like a charge really you know and she used to have terrible Tantrums if she couldn't get her own way there okie punched my mom which I dread to talk about but which I feel ashamed about and a date-like fact I didn't Shawna's struggled to come to terms with her situation she had done couple of suicide attempts one day she slashed her legs with a razor and I just you know it was so frightening I just didn't know how to help her anymore she most certainly was not the person the daughter that we had before her accident Shauna's parents didn't know if they would ever get back the daughter they knew and loved they realized Shana like all brain-injured patients would need professional help to have any chance of making a full recovery as Sarah Scantlin lay helpless at golden planes nursing home seasons came and went without any change in her condition I continued for years to go visit her and there's not a lot to say when somebody's not responding back to you though I would go to see her and and my visits would become shorter and fewer and farther between then after 17 years of silence there was a dramatic development Sarah began to scream friends and family were filled with hope they believed these screams could be the start of meaningful communication Sarah finally got her voice back which I thought was gonna be nice however Sarah just screamed as her cries continued the initial hope fainted I hate this screen because I do not know what that screen means does that mean don't go does that mean I love you does it mean don't come anymore what does it mean I would have to tell her I'd have to make my journey back to Kansas City and she would scream too which I would hear her all the way down the halls of golden plains just broke my heart it's heart-wrenching its heart-wrenching and you walk out and she's still sitting there with nobody it's worse than the silence because now you can hear it in your head Sarah's family was foolish to accept that her screaming might continue forever but then after three years something extraordinary happened in February 2005 20 years after sarah.scampini first fell into her coma her parents received an urgent phone call it was one of the nurses at Golden Plains she said I got somebody here that wants to talk to you and then I her circle hi mom and I said sir what's that you yeah and I said why you did nothing it's like when your baby first starts to talk it's the same ulation I had the first time I heard him say mama it really is Betsy then immediately phoned Laurie she said lor are you sitting down and I said no do I need to be and she said Sara's talking and chills went from the tip of my head to the tips of my toes and I'm just saying that again gives me chills I said what do you mean she's talking she says she called me on the phone and she's talking and she asked for make him mr.vain Sara that's one of the first things she asked her for was to bring makeup I knew that I needed to get there as quickly as I could [Music] [Applause] nobody had been in a coma-like State for longer and started talking [Music] an amazing date with a Scantlin family a daughter who's been silent for 20 years is now Thomas again after 20 years of silence hearing this most beautiful music Jim and Betsy Scantlin could ever ask to hear no one including her doctors really knows how well Sarah will ever get MIT as her dad puts it with her determination Sarah will carry it as far as she wants to after 20 years of despairing and resignation she can speak well enough that you understand and it confirms that she is cognizant of hers her environment so that was a huge ray of Sun beaming through this dark cloud [Music] for years Laurie has been haunted by what she witnessed the night of Sara's horrific accident she is visiting Sara's parents to seek their advice on how she can move on at long last Laurie [Music] the relationships were warm enough between my family and her family that you know my relationship with her folks were mom and dad Scantlin that's just how I know I'm you know we've talked a lot since this has all happened you know you do start thinking about it again to see that destroyed is is probably the heaviest traumatic thing anyone could go through and for whatever reason one day I guess this is after Sarah started talking again I Drive out there on purpose and I stop and I get out of the car and I said it's nice to visit the place where Sarah had her last best fun and I put that a lot more paused away and it was really neat because she was with her best friend so so think of it those terms you work with Sarah the last night sir was having fun hey those who's here you bet to see my girl fine good Sarah's emergence after two decades was like a fairy tale doctors were baffled by her recovery Sara's case is certainly unique in that most patients with her severe head injury that are comatose for those 20 years don't have the recovery that she has had she is doing things that we can't explain there's no medical reason to my knowledge that Sara should be talking today I don't think there's an answer for it and I don't I can't give you that answer I think Sara laid there alone she should I am getting sick and tired of this and put her entire being into this urge that I am going get through this blackness in this impossible maze I'm gonna find an exit I think the intriguing part about all of this is nobody knows the answers closer examination of Sara's brain scans makes her newfound ability to talk even more extraordinary when the surgeons removed the blood clot that threatened to kill her they had to destroy part of the frontal lobe of her brain this is a cat scan of Sara's brain performed a couple of years ago which shows that there is quite extensive damage to the front of the left side of the brain this damage is likely to include Broca's area the language area at the front of the brain which is required for processing fluent speech incredibly sara was able to regain the power of speech with this part of the brain destroyed there is a large portion in everybody's brain that is not being used or is what I call in backup mode when a patient is challenged and stimulated we all hope that those dormant areas of the brain can pick up some of those functions what we all call neuroplasticity neuroplasticity is a relatively new theory that refers to the ability of the brain to change in Sara's case this may have allowed her to start talking again the right hemisphere seems relatively well-preserved the right hemisphere does often have some capacity for language and it's possible over time that capacity might develop to allow speech to recover Sara is now a 41 year old woman but she still has the same love of makeup that she did as a teenager that color all right for your blush the reality is that Sara still believes she is a teenager people who have woken from long-term comas often have a distorted view of the passage of time May 2nd which year 1966 yeah tell me how old you are 19 I don't think she really grasped the time thing I think that in this 20 years seems like yesterday to her she just looks in question like how is this possible that you have four children and you can tell there's a question there in her mind that she just can't quite put it together the idea that someone suddenly wakes up from a coma and is normal again is only what you see in television dramas you have your your old memories from many years ago that are ingrained in your head but the recent new learning tends to be a struggle [Music] since she woke up sarah has shocked everybody by describing what she experienced during those 20 years are you all fixed up now oh you look nice how could you here how was her but you couldn't see as well Sarah also claims to remember events that happened while she was in her coma do you remember about what somebody says 9/11 there's a bad deal what hit those buildings through a plane exactly wanted to do up to a lot of people based on this apparent level of awareness doctors now believes that Sarah was in what is called a minimally conscious state or MCS the minimally conscious state is a state in which there is some early evidence of recovery some attempt to communicate on the patient's part some evidence of purposeful action clearly there was a lot of sensory intake coming in she just wasn't able to express outwardly what was going on mcs is a recently described condition there was no name for it when Sarah first fell into her coma this formation of a new diagnosis was controversial it raised the specter that patients like Sarah had been written off too quickly can you imagine having a high level or a level of awareness and not being able to express and I said to me it would be like being you marijuana use a kid and you have a nightmare and you couldn't quite get out of it after 20 years asleep Sarah's emergence was not a fairytale ending she's still suffering the effects of her severe injuries now her challenge is to see how far she can recover 18 months after coming out of her three-week coma Shona Thwaites had regained the power of speech and just started walking again but she was still suffering from the effects of her brain injury I just didn't know how to cope with her anymore her frustrations and her anger at being like this she couldn't understand as she got better why she couldn't lead a normal life but she was vulnerable and she really couldn't take care of herself her parents sent her to a specialist rehabilitation unit to help her overcome her disabilities today Shauna is making the two-hour journey - Banstead near London England to visit the unit it is the first time she's been back in seven years since I was abandoned I think I've improved a lot I've done five years at college now qualified to hopefully get into University this autumn and I can't wait tell them that I'm looking forward to going back to show off I don't know I don't wanna sound big-headed but then I don't - I shouldn't be because when someone's been through - droned come as far as this then you got right shell Seana has arranged to meet the carers who was so instrumental in helping her recover from her brain injuries [Music] most people who come here have been in a coma sometimes for days sometimes for months they all have some cognitive difficulties so they might have disinhibition they probably have personality shift and typically they don't understand or accept that there's anything wrong with them one of the main objectives of staying at the brain is physical rehabilitation Shawna had to overcome paralysis on her right side I remember doing this at the bling least my right hand looked up like that we made very good progress with that though didn't you because when you first came here you didn't want to use your right hand who did some work on balanced yes balancing and still now 10 years on back on the right side my leg goes are roughly and everything so practice rehabilitation also helps with any psychological damage there having to come to terms with the fact that they are not the person they were so we have a lot of grieving for the person who was as well as understanding the person who is during her year at Banstead Shawn are improved greatly for the final two months she lived independently in a cottage in the grounds of the unit changed Shana is a very good example of what rehabilitation after acquire brain injury can do she left here with much greater life expectation than she had before [Music] brings back a lot of memories both good and bad but I wouldn't be where I am now it wasn't Banstead help me come on this far it's great to see how well she's progressed it's absolutely fantastic after a ten-year struggle Shawna has made a remarkable recovery she lives a full life with good friends and a boyfriend Gary who she's been dating for two years but she will always suffer from the effects of the injuries that put her in a coma the most difficult thing for me to accept has been the loss of my intelligence I want to be a journalist I wanted to go far and now I would fare the exam straight away very that is very hard to accept a hundred percent recovery I couldn't possibly even envisage what that would be if you mean a hundred percent recovery to the person she was before then no we won't experience that but we have another daughter now a different person and she's 100% the person she is Seana took years of rehabilitation to recover from her 23 day coma after 20 years in a minimally conscious state sarah.scampini faces a much greater battle of recovery [Music] since Sarah Scantlin first emerged from her coma like state she has made extraordinary progress Sarah's mind has broken free from her coma but her body still suffers the effects of being unable to move for 20 years her nursing home provides physical therapy three times a week doctors have decided Sarah's first big goal is to feed herself Sarah is improving by small steps but they will give hugs rate or independence what color is there you're picking up and she's a good patient very good patient because she is determined direction we have to keep on working with her you know it's 20 years you can't do it just within a few months they'll take some time and I think she's doing really good Golden Plains is not a specialist unit to help Sarah move forward her parents are organizing for her to attend a specialist Brain Injury Center run by dr. Linda lattices when Sarah comes for her rehabilitation she will have comprehensive therapies we primarily use three disciplines physical occupational and speech therapy mostly comes down to hard work and therapy expertise finding out what she can do finding out ways to allow her to do as much as she can herself as someone who is very close to her age I could see where she was at 18 and where I was at 18 and how life-changing it was for someone who had so many goals and ambitions and the family had dreams for her and these last 20 years had not been what they had prepared for [Music] Cera amazed the medical community when she defied all odds to find her voice again she is determined to break new boundaries and continue her fairy tale recovery so what are we going to try to do next what are some of your goals do I walk lots of big one all the more well I'd love to see that sir and it is certainly possible besides walking had boy that's the big one that's great what else you want to try to do get me another one you want to do what say it again are there other things go home yeah I know that why try to you have to oh sorry your dad you're in my life you're the best I couldn't have found a better knowledge sarah has proved to all of us that there's hope the mindset was that she would lay lifeless the rest of her life and the fact that she can talk and can communicate is a miraculous story of hope I thought she was condemned for 20 years and then we've had this ray of sunlight and Sarah will take it as far as sir can take it I'll guarantee you that you've you've just surprised the world and I'm betting $1 you're gonna do more and more and more there's nothing that Sarah can't do [Music] you you

Channel: Only Human

Views: 5,564,753

Keywords: Only Human, adapting to new life, awakening after decades, brain damage recovery, brain plasticity, cognitive rehabilitation, coma awareness, coma victim's story, empowering story, endurance and perseverance, family resilience, family support, family's sacrifice, healthcare challenges, long-term care challenges, medical bills burden, medical breakthrough, medical miracle, miraculous awakening journey, nursing home awakening, speech rehabilitation

Id: TOWTXwM0tik

Length: 46min 19sec (2779 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2017