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Paralyzed Man Was Awake for 23 Years, Not in Vegetative State


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Paralyzed Man Was Awake for 23 Years, Not in Vegetative State

Belgian Researcher Proves a Paralyzed Man Was Fully Conscious With Brain Scan

By LAUREN COX

ABC News Medical Unit

Nov. 24, 2009

A paralyzed Belgian man who spent the past 23 years incorrectly diagnosed as being in a vegetative state, was fully conscious and could hear everything around him the entire time.

Rom Houben was believed to be in a coma for 23 years, but was in fact paralyzed.

The man, Rom Houbens, can finally communicate, thanks to a neurologist's persistent research. Doctors had assumed the 1983 car crash that paralyzed Houbens, now 46, had also put him in a vegetative state -- awake but not conscious of his surroundings. Houbens, a one-time engineering student and martial arts enthusiast was trapped in his own world. That is, until Dr. Steven Laureys of the University of Liege, using modern brain scanning technology unavailable in the 1980s, saw that Houbens' brain lit up with near-normal functioning when he was asked a question. Houbens had heard the doctors, nurses and family speaking in his room for decades. "I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me -- it was my second birth," Houbens told the German magazine Der Spiegel, communicating via special keyboard.

Laureys discovered Houbens' state in a Belgian hospital three years ago, but the case has only just come to light after Laureys published a study in the journal, BMC Neurology earlier this year. He argued that new imaging technology will show that many more people like Houbens, believed in a vegetative state are actually misdiagnosed. According to ABC News senior health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser, misdiagnosis can happen fairly easily in the beginning of treatment.

There's two more pages to the story: http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/MindMoodNews/doctors-find-vegetative-paralyzed-man-awake-23-years/story?id=9159555

That's insane. I can't imagine the fear and frustration laying there for 23 years, hearing everything, but unable to respond or say anything or ask for help. :eek:

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That's insane. I can't imagine the fear and frustration laying there for 23 years, hearing everything, but unable to respond or say anything or ask for help. :eek:

I've been married for 26 years. Pretty much the same thing.

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Wow! I cannot even begin to imagine.

Wonder if he overheard anything interesting in those 23yrs! Or maybe some lonely night nurse had her way

with him thinking no one would know :D. Oh god' date=' maybe a male nurse! Yikes :([/quote']

:nono: But if he was paralyzed, could he still get it up? For either nurse?:dunno:

I've been married for 26 years. Pretty much the same thing.

+1 :lol:

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I'm not buying it until he uses one of those eye following devices that Steven Hawking does instead of the handler guiding the hand on the keyboard.

Yeah, I saw that too and thought this is BS! Besides if I was in a state like that, please finish the job and kill me!!!! We are kinder to animals than we are people when it comes to humane treatment. There is no way I would want to be trapped inside a usless body I can no longer control while being fully aware of everything that goes on around me.:eek:

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Wonder if he overheard anything interesting in those 23yrs! Or maybe some lonely night nurse had her way

with him thinking no one would know :D. Oh god' date=' maybe a male nurse! Yikes :([/quote']

039c0f2aa8db4e858338936f9292929c.jpg

my name is buck, and im here to fuck

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  • 2 years later...

being paralyzed shouldn't affect his erectile capabilities... it's not a muscle like you would think. it's not voluntary either in the first place when you get a woody. it's just a valve like thing slowing blood flow out, so it gets pumped up with blood. so when hot nurse betty walks in, he could have possibly accidentally popped it up anyway.

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being paralyzed shouldn't affect his erectile capabilities... it's not a muscle like you would think. it's not voluntary either in the first place when you get a woody. it's just a valve like thing slowing blood flow out, so it gets pumped up with blood. so when hot nurse betty walks in, he could have possibly accidentally popped it up anyway.

:lol: You brought this thread back to talk about the guy's peni? :lol:

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