“I was shouting but no one could hear me!”  Rom Houben repotedly spent some 23 years in a vegetative state before beginning to “communicate” again by moving a single unparalized finger against a screen

Beethoven, Symphony No 9 In D Minor, Ode To Joy

“it was very dramatic, because I was fully conscious… so, yes I now can actually tell you how horrible it was and it’s hard for you to even imagine what it must be like…. to be conscious yet, cut off from the outside world,”

“Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it,”

“I heard medical staff discussing my case, without being able to join in.”

“All that time I just dreamed of a better life,” he now says. “Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt. I screamed, but there was nothing to hear.

“I listened to my mother talking to me, but was unable to respond. And I tried, fruitlessly, to work out how to make contact with her.”

“I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me – it was my second birth. I want to read, talk with my fiends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead.”

Dr. Laurys and his colleagues at the University of Liege have discovered through the years that many who have been injuries to the brain can heal.  Until now, however, no follow up was typically done after the first diagnosis was made.

Since Houben’s new birth, Dr. Laurys has discovered 18 more patients who were misdiagnosed; likely, neurocritical care physicians have only touched the hem of the garment.

In the meantime, Mr. Houben is being trained to communicate via a special keyboard.  He will likely have much to say; 25 years is a long time to be silent.

Being in a vegetative state, a man’s life can be terminated involuntarily at any minute so a misdiagnosis like Mr. Houben can be life-threatening.

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