But the doctors were so sure…
A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.
Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them - but could make no sound.
'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state.
'I dreamed myself away,' he added, tapping his tale out with the aid of a computer.
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.
Mr Houben described the moment as 'my second birth'. Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen.
Now think back on Terry Schiavo as she died of thirst.
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A little scepticism is in order here. Facilitated Communication is a hoax. News reports are very sloppy. For example: "‘I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,’ said Mr Houben..." Houben said no such thing, he can't talk. There is nothing to indicate that the original diagnosis was incorrect -- the man was, and is, in a vegetative state. This is just another case of good-hearted people manipulating emotions.
If that's the case, then the doctors and others involved should be charged with fraud. There should be ways to prove or disprove this -- specifically asking questions about the individual's past that the "facilitator" has no way of knowing.
[...] month, I mentioned the case of Rom Houben who was believed to be in a persistent vegetative state for decades, but was in fact conscious for [...]