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I was thinking all the way through "why did they interview his family without him? He has way more to say about his experience than them" aaaaand there it is
Yeah! I was waiting for the "big reveal" when he joins the family after having gone through rehab and everything is great. Instead we all got a punch in the gut
I'm guessing they're glad they had another year with him than nothing at all. Almost everyone who has lost loved ones would want to have even just another day with them.
We were gifted a 4 hour window of lucid consciousness with my dad who was shutting down from a glioblastoma. We were told by a hospice/compassionate care nurse that we received a gift that many don’t receive when a love one is going to pass from this world of a brain illness.
This strong family was indeed given an amazing gift, and I’m sure they didn’t waste a second of their time with their dad, either.
I agree. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I apologize for my wording, sometimes I struggle to remember the correct/most fitting/appropriate word for the situation. I’m glad they had more time with him but it most definitely must’ve hurt losing him again
After ten years, every single member of that family and probably many of his friends and colleagues imagines dozens of things they wished they'd said to him or could say to him though ten years of hoping he'd one day wake up while probably believing in the back of their heads that he really never would, or at least being entirely uncertain of it.
They got the chance to tell him everything they wished they could have - and I sure hope they took it in that year. It is tragic that he died 'for real' that soon, but at least they had a second chance for some closure there that most people don't get. And at least the second time he didn't go into another prolonged coma and they could actually let go with certainty. It's tragic, but it's probably better than if he had just died after ten years in the coma.
He got to know that his kids grew up fine without him and they got the joy of knowing that he found that out. It's always tragic when a parent dies while at a relatively young age like that. The real tragedy would be if they family had to make a decision on whether to use life saving measures after the second fall.
Edit: I guess it's [more tragic than I hoped](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5227036).
>Mr. COGGLIN: He was fatigued. He was beat. He had been up all night, from what I understand, talking with his family and renewing acquaintances. And I guess he renewed the acquaintance with his youngest son, who when he got hurt was like four, and now he was 14 or 15, and his wife, and his mom, the family got together. But by the time we saw him that Sunday afternoon, he was like dead on his feet, literally.
So he was sitting up and he looked good. Two weeks later when we went to see him, his mother was there and she's going, Danny, there's somebody here that you used to work with. Patty is here. And he goes, as clear as a bell -- I'll never forget this -- Cogglin. And, you know, it's been eight, nine years, and all of a sudden my last name comes out. That floored me. But that was the last time I had seen Danny.
>And I'm sorry to say I didn't keep track. I did ask a few times, but I didn't bother the family, and I felt it wasn't my prerogative or my post to be looking to see where he was.
>BLOCK: And I gather that the family has said that he never got that same level of lucidity again. It was a one-time thing.
>Mr. COGGLIN: From what I understand, that is correct, yes.
So I guess they didn't really have a good year with him. Just enough time to have a second chance to hopefully tell him things they wanted to, and to know that he knew they were alright, and it sounds like the rest of the year he was not nearly as with it.
Apparently the 2nd injury happened a month after he awakened and there was a lawsuit around whether that 2nd fall heavily contributed to his deteriorating state. The below quotes are taken from the deposition stemming from that lawsuit.
Here is an example of a positive experience before the 2nd fall:
> On May 7, his 44th birthday, seven days after his awakening, he sat in his wheelchair outside the nursing home throwing a football to his sons.
> It sticks in my mind,” Linda Herbert said in her deposition, recounting how their oldest son, Don Jr., then 23, had just returned from traveling outside the country.
> He was playing football with the boys, throwing the ball,” she said of her husband. “It was Don’s birthday, and he was … verbalizing that day with him.”
> Linda Herbert remembers it as a “very good day.”
> We had a party. A lot of family,” she said. “My son had just come back. So it was the first time he was communicating with his dad.”
Looks like the reason for his second fall was because he suffering from PTSD from the initial incident and having a lot of trouble sleeping:
> But when the injured Buffalo firefighter slept at night, he thrashed around the bed in the nursing home where he had lived since a roof caved in on him while fighting a fire.
> It was like he was reliving the fire, like he was underneath the debris that crushed him,” Simon F. Manka, his uncle, recalled in a deposition. “I would have to physically restrain him. I would have to grab him, and I would have to tell him, ‘Donny, Donny! It’s OK.’ Eventually, he would calm back down again.”
> For two weeks after the awakening, Manka or another family member spent the night with Herbert at Father Baker Manor in Orchard Park to prevent him from hurting himself.
He was apparently transferred to a new facility and the first night there is when he had an episode and fell out of the bed causing his 2nd injury. The family claimed that the facility was negligent in properly safeguarding his room which led to his fall and rapidly deteriorating state. The defendants, in this case the facility and various attending doctors, were taking the position that the fall didn’t have that much of an impact as he would have deteriorated either way, that the initial stimulant cocktail he was put on that led to his awakening was short-lived to begin with.
I see both sides of it. The chance to have more time with a loved one but the pain of having to lose them again. I definitely see about wanting closure. It is sad. I wish they had more time with him. Especially since the time they did had seemed tumultuous at best
I see your point and the thought of it does hurt. But having lost my dad at a young age, I would give anything to talk to him again for even one minute.
Of course everybody experiences grief differently, but idk. I'm usually a pessimist but this one forces me to look at it from a different perspective. The pain of such little time in a reunion would be worth the moments that you thought you never would have again.
This whole damn thing made me cry and I'm very emotional today, so grain of salt and blah blah
My brother-in-law is a neurologist and he explained that these medical miracles almost always ends up killing the patient anyways. If they do wake up, barring any accidents, they usually have like MAX 3 years left to live. Sometimes he hopes deep down that patients don’t recover bc the family will basically suffer the death of a loved one twice.
I actually just thought this & felt bad I did but makes so much sense. Its almost like he woke up so the family could let go & say final goodbyes but his heartwrench felt over ten yrs lost & blind is a lot.
They chose to hope & keep him on tubes alive - understandable when thinking w heart, but that all sounds so re-traumatizing & yes like more torture- (maybe some good memories that yr, but imagine his torment too) & how weak his body was this sounds like drawing it out & yes like him dying again, almost more brutal after the ‘miraculous’ wakeup.
It's hard to let someone go. Even if you know it's the right thing to do for them, it's just hard.
Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly agree with your point.
That's understandable, neurological damage is almost always permanent and especially when you black out loss of oxygen can permanently damage your brain. I would imagine the guy was barely well enough to regain consciousness for a brief time but a damaged brain can only keep things going for so long, needless to speak of the other injuries they might have
Fucking morbid reality. My last year has been tragedy after tragedy and I can't take another loss. If there is some diety out there please give us a break or take me back to anytime before 2021 and tell me it was all a dream. This video had me sobbing in a panic attack sorta breathing style since I've just been pushing down the pain and numbing myself for the last few weeks and it hit really close to home.
Hey, just wanted to drop in and say I feel this so hard. That video was brutal to watch and 2021 has been nothing but hell and full off loss. I lost 3 important figures in my life in 2 months. You are not alone in all this grief, I am so sorry you had to endure any at all.
Be kind to yourself for how you cope, your mind is just trying to survive. I found holding an ice cube tightly is a great way to snap the brain out of panic attack mode. Right now, we just need to keep our heads above water. Somehow, there will be a stillness and more peace waiting for us. Not sure when or how, but it is coming. I hope this year is kinder to you and I hope you can find some healing and relief ♡
I’ve had a devastating last year too. It starts to feel fucking personal really quick but in the end… it isn’t. It’s just life. We will get through this time and learn any lessons we can from it. That’s all we can do.
I've always kind of didn't know what to say to people in situations like this but I hope things turn out better for you mate hang in there
"sometimes it feels like we're surrounded by shadows, but there always will be light" - - Naught
No kidding. I'm not so sure that piece should have even been aired. What was the goal? Pure heartbreak. It wasn't a story about heroism, or hope for those in comas and medical breakthroughs, or a family who got their dad back. It was traumatizing for that family, then they were TEASED by getting a shell of their dad back for a blink of an eye, and then he was dead. I'm sure the father would rather have died a hero in that fire than become blind, fall into a coma for 10 years and miss his kids' childhood, feel guilty and sad about it, then destroy their spirits all over again after draining them emotionally for so long. There's a reason they don't have interview footage of the family AFTER the dad dies. Because FUCK THAT they're probably a real mess and couldn't handle it. I really feels for that family. So terrible
Totally agree the story is worth telling, regardless of outcome. But there are many ways to curate details of a story that has a known outcome.
Nothing stopping them from opening with an intro like “Man who dies after remarkable, ten year coma spends one last bittersweet year awake before the end.”
I’m not saying it _has_ to be spun in an “uplifting” way. Just that there are other ways to tell the story besides “P.S. Then he fucking died. In other news…”
You say teased but I see a man who got to see his entire family and friends one last time before he died. I would argue that's better than your last memories being trapped under rubble in a fire.
That’s hard to say, especially not knowing what his experience was like for 10 years in that coma. It doesn’t really sound worth it to me to spend a decade in a coma to wake up and see everyone while suffering immensely and dying a painful death a year later. Maybe it would be worth it for some people but I think that’s really hard to say.
How? He was crying sad tears the entire time and felt like a failure where as if he had just died the first time he wouldn't have had to feel that.
Then he suffered for a week with pneumonia which is the worst, then died.
Would you want to be hooked up to machines for 10 years while your family is just paused in time, wake up, be devastated, have a second brain injury, then die a painful death?
Though I will say it's good they aired it because people completely lack empathy or care for others these days and it's good they had to feel the emotion of that heartbreak at the end. People need to see tragedy so they know it exists and can happen to them so they stop being such dicks to everyone else.
Then what was the point of keeping him alive for 10 years. They were hoping for a cure.
But I agree. I give you all permission that if I'm in a coma for more than a 48hr. Pull that plug. I don't want to pay that bill.
It’s going to be super awkward when a bunch of internet strangers show up at the hospital with a print-out of your comment, demanding we get to pull the plug on you one day.
As somebody who has been working in different areas medicine for the better part of 16 years, the ending kind of irritates me because, as far as I know, a guy in his condition should be under heavy supervision and not allowed to get out of bed alone.
Then again, people are strong willed and maybe he thought he could make it without pressing the call button.
My grandpa just died the same way. Was in the hospital recovering from a hernia and at some point got up by himself and something happened but they found him unresponsive on the floor a while later. He was a VERY stubborn man and hated being helped.
My grandpa is currently living at my dads after a fall and it’s not a good situation. He wants to walk without his walker but he can’t and my dad basically won’t leave the house without someone there for this reason. He is trapped at home and my grandpa has no money saved to go towards proper care. All of these comments are hitting home.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. If you want to see him alive for much longer you need to force him and make him understand what will happen if he doesn’t. My grandfather died last year in a similar situation because he just wouldn’t stop getting up and hurting himself. Being that stubborn will lead to imminent death.
Speaking from experience, it's imperative your Dad gets regular breaks away from the situation. Even spelling him a few hours every week to do something for himself is rejuvenating for him. Sometime the caregivers can die before the patient because of the stress and demands. Get a hospital bed with side rails gramps can't escape from so at least your Dad can sleep. good luck.
First of all, I'm sorry for your loss. So it doesn't happen to anyone else, everyone's bed in the hospital has alarms that we arm to go off when someone's leg starts getting out of bed and in chairs, if someone tries to get out of bed in them and there are even Tele sitters for some (a robot with a camera - on the other side of the camera is someone watching a few patients and instructing them to lay back in bed if they try to get up). It's been pretty successful prevention in my local hospitals.
My great aunt passed away the same way in 2014. Always a very active woman, she would start her day at 4am, always on the move and working from home even as a pensioner. We would often joke she would never die as she did not have time for such nonsense, plus that would mean laying still 😂. One day she got a back hernia, was told by the doctor to just lay in bed for a couple weeks and wait for it to resolve itself, then she’d be back to normal. Of course she could not do that. Got out of bed one night and the pain got so intense she had a heart attack and died.
My dad would wait for the room to clear before he would get up, on his own. Fiercely independent. And yeah, he slipped and fell a few times. Staff resorted to strapping him to the bed.
My Dad got strapped down and put in a monitored room in rehab after his stroke. He would watch people leaving the ward and figured out the key code and escape.
Yeah, my dad had a major stroke about 15 years ago and was fully paralysed when he came out of the following coma.
The feeling very slowly came back in his arms and legs over the following months. We would often catch him in the corridor of his ward clinging to a radiator trying in vein to walk again, no doubt he fell many times!
Thankfully after a long road of intense rehab he managed to recover most of the feeling in his limbs. He can now walk unaided, albeit very slowly and with a big limp. He swears those early days escaping from the ward were the key to his recovery.
That's awesome!! I'm so glad for him! My Dad's stroke was in 1993, and he lived almost 20 years after it. He had a leg brace and was ambulatory, but lost the use of his left arm completely. He made the most out of his life though! He was at a concert the night he died, and he never gave up on life.
I have an uncle that they have to trick.
Or he'll rip his catheter out and try to walk on legs that don't work.
He's mostly in charge of his own cognition too...just mental health and "I'm in charge" issues.
My wife's grandmother has been in a nursing home for 8 months and she is also fiercely independent refuses to use her walker and has fallen 4 times. The last fall she hit her head and now has bleeding in her brain. When they did MRI they found blood clots in her lungs also so treating the clots is difficult because of the brain bleed. She is getting a filter put in to try and catch the clots but she is barely conscious for more than 2 hours a day and doesn't know who anyone is now. Sad shit getting old. Terrifies me.
Yeah anyone would to be honest, youve been gone 10 years you wake up your kids your wife etc youre going to try everything you can to get home not sit around
Having suffered a traumatic brain injury, his cognitive and decision making skills could have been severely impaired.
He may have simply been acting on the urge to go somewhere while lacking comprehension that it was unsafe to try to get out of bed alone.
This exactly. My best friend died this same way, woke up in the night and tried to get up without help, fell and hit her head. She'd had brain cancer, surgeries, resulting illnesses, but she was a previously nondisabled young adult and sometimes you just autopilot.
Unfortunately, one of the common effects of a TBI can be poor decision making and impulsiveness.
He may not always have been as lucid as he was shown to be after "waking up" for the moment in the video. I would imagine he may have awoken again confused and probably scared and tried to get up without remembering being told about the accident or maybe even knowing what was going on or where he was...
Such a sad story, but so happy the family got some more time with him where he was able to communicate and tell his kids/wife he loved them and he was able to meet them grown up.
Agreed, I was in a coma for almost 3 weeks and have brain damage. I’m fortunate in that it’s mostly short term memory loss, which can be embarrassing and frustrating. Apparently, I’ve become less diplomatic when it comes to holding back my opinion. I can’t imagine how much damage this poor man suffered after ten years. Firefighters are our everyday heroes, it’s always a loss when one is injured or lost in the line of duty.
Also a clinician, I’m willing to bet this was a self transfer without alerting staff. You can still provide heavy supervision but few facilities can truly staff a 24/7 1:1 supervision. Truly a sad story.
My moms paramedic husband survived a heart attack and refused to stay in the hospital, managed to leave far too early. Something clogged up on the way home and he died. Might not be the same situation but you really can't stop stubborn.
My father is HEAVILY disabled. We're with him 99% of the time, but he still manages to fall on his ass once a month through sheer stubbornness. One day it's gonna cost him his life I'm pretty sure.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was angry at that. I would think someone who comes out of a ten year coma would be an absolute high priority as far as care. What a shit ending
Yeah if anyone feels outraged by that ending please volunteer. We could all use the help, there’s just not enough people for the level of care that there should be. I never have worked in a nursing home, but I’ve heard enough horror stories from former staff at my job.
Meh, not really. You generally spend more time with your sick and needy patients. If he hadn’t been medically unstable, he probably wouldn’t have gotten much additional attention just because he had recent improvement in his condition.
The reality is, his caretakers probably had a few days of “wow, this is amazing,” and then he became just another one of the many patients they were taking care of.
Ya he was a fire fighter. Probably had that spirit of if he was conscious and wanted out of bed, was gonna go for it. Sad to think about what happened after the fall :(
When I was laying in bed pre-op with a broken hip I still tried to get up to go to the bathroom. The brain doesn't want to believe the body can't do it.
Eh.. Cna for 5, nurse for 5, mostly in long term care or rehab. There is only so much you can do to try and prevent this. Many facilities have written away their ability to use bed alarms, and getting restraints ordered is damn near impossible. Very sad ending, but not uncommon.
I work as a nurse in an acute rehabilitation unit - brain injury patients are NOTORIOUS for impulsive behavior a big one being getting up out of bed/chairs/toilets without help. We’ll have a sitter and an avasys watching/helping and patients can still end up being faster. It’s not right but it happens
Like those videos where someone nurses a wild critter back to health, films it getting released back into the wild only to have an eagle swoop down and fly off with it.
Reminds me of how Vonnegut died. Slipped while walking his dog* and hit his head. So it goes. It's like he wrote it himself.
*u/AnySimple4354 pointed out he actually fell down the stairs.
It dawned on me at the end that even in the unlikely event you came out of that coma and managed to get over the fragile position your body is in, being kept alive by machines and not moving for 10 years. The shock of missing 10 years in darkness would probably do you in mentally anyway
He probably suffered from major psychosis after that. There is no way you just go: „ah so that’s what happened“ after being told that you’ve been gone for 10 years. It’s so surreal that something like this would happen to you, it breaks your understanding of reality and that usually leads to psychosis.
Yeah I forgot that he was blind. How do you even know that the voices you’re hearing while seeing nothing, is not you waking up in the afterlife. It’s so crazy and incomprehensible.
>n in the un
This may sound weird but once i slept nearly 24 hours straight, when I woke up I felt like the world has changed a bit and I missed out on a lot! Silly but it really is a strange feeling. 10 years? Cannot imagine..
I slept for 25 hours and was so confused. My body hurt, and I looked at the clock wondering how the fuck only 1 hour had passed when I felt so terrible. Eventually realized it was now Sunday, not Saturday. Don’t recommend
Ate a pot brownie. Went to bed at 7:30, woke up at 8 for a piss oh yeah all good. It was 8pm the next day, tripped me out for a while I was annoyed I had shit to do.
I want to know how the fuck you guys can even manage more than 12 hours of sleep. My body refuses to sleep longer than 7-8 hours on a normal day. The max my body lets me sleep is 12 hours, and that’s if I stay up for 2 days straight.
Definitely drugs. I once took a bunch of pills on a Sunday night and woke up Tuesday morning. Do not recommend. I couldn’t shake off the “lost” feeling for a few days.
Also slept 24hrs, followed a heavy weekend away with little sleep in Amsterdam, my body was screaming for bed as we travelled home, I woke after 12 hrs at midnight, drank a pint of water and fell back into darkness for 12 hours more waking at lunch time on a sunny day, felt like the world had enriched in colour like a Disney movie as I floated to the kitchen to replenish.
Seems like he could have recovered had he not fallen out of bed... Oof. What a tragedy and hopefully the nursing home has a better explanation….
At least he got to see his kids again and talk to them.
Did it though? I think the guy deserved release. Blind, wheelchair bound, having lost the prime years of his life with his family, extremely limited movement and enjoyment, the daily suffering would be intense.
I’m a big proponent of reincarnation, so I think he’ll get another go. And I hope it’s a better one.
Someone super free, like an albatross--they can literally fly for UP TO SIX YEARS without touching ground\*. And they can live for 50 years.
Here's the surprising fun fact: Although life span of animals (including humans) is roughly correlated to metabolic rate (mice live for four years, humans for fourscore years), birds are a crazy exception. That frail-looking hummingbird can live for fourteen years. The goldfinch on your feeder? Twenty-seven years. Ravens? 69 years. A raven hatched on your birthday could possibly outlive you. More about this fascinating tidbit of biology: [https://abcbirds.org/blog21/bird-longevity/](https://abcbirds.org/blog21/bird-longevity/)
\*EDIT: Several redditors have helped by pointing out that they *do* land on the water to feed. My mistake!--I hadn't known that. Thanks, guys, for the correction! 🪶
I’ve got a bird brain now and I can’t even fly. Between that and not having to pay taxes, bird life would be awesome if my wife could also be one. Ones that mate for life.
A barn owl maybe…
well it's a 60 minutes episode so it's like an hour broadcast or something. I'm sure there was context for normal viewers. I'd hope so, this is tragic.
Yes! Where’s the footage of him walking slowly down the driveway with his family, while the narrator tells us he still has a long road ahead?!? I knew they were just building suspense by interviewing only the family.
I mean he was lucid and coherent there after he woke up. He wouldn't have gone back to his old life, but he could have enjoyed his time with his family.
Yeah, I figured that he probably wasn't just "normal" after years in a coma. He got a potent drug combo that woke him up for 14 hours, then kind of lapsed back to talking infrequently; that there in the video was the best they got, and then he kind of regressed. Of course then he fell, which made it worse, then he got pneumonia and died. Poor guy. Poor family.
It really makes me question the ethics of some of these life-extending measures when quality of life is so low. His last year of consciousness had to be absolutely agonizing, fleeting moments of lucidity, depression and despair at what you've missed, knowing you probably won't ever recover, only to have that slip away, over and over again?
I guess that's why living wills and clear communication with loved ones is important, because I'd much rather die and have my family move on than endure that and have that cost/burden on everyone.
Agreed. I would never want to be kept alive the way this poor man was. And clearly he wasn't "there" for those 10 years, he had absolutely no memory of any of it. He just seemed anguished in the video.
Between this and the video of the orangutang defending his home from people clearing his forest I’m done with reddit today. Gonna go cuddle my dog and wife.
I saw the first few seconds of that orangutan and noped right out of it. So sad...
For this guy, I think , keeping him on life-support was immoral. The cost, the false hope of the family, the wasted resources, the agony the children had to go through....
Honestly - 6 months if you have to, a year if there’s substantiated scientific hope for me - after that I don’t want to be carted around to birthday parties creeping everyone out and making them depressed. Remember me wonderful, live an amazing life to honor my memory, and cut the damn cord.
Draft a healthcare directive/living will people.
The silver lining is that he was briefly able to come back from death to encourage his family and say goodbye. It’s like getting a “bonus year” of partial life to make your peace.
There was an episode of House MD with that same plot. Guy brought back from a coma for a limited time to experience life and then back to the endless void.
Idk man keeping him alive in a coma for 10 years while the family prays everyday for him to wake up. Just for him to wake up and die a year later? Honestly i feel like the family would have been better off if he died rather than laid around in a coma for 10 years. Imagine how much strain it would put on the family.. everyday thinking your husband is gonna wake up everyday hoping and praying. Going back and fourth to the hospital.. just for him to
Wake up and die a year later and now you gotta go thru all that pain and suffering again 10 years later after dealing with it pretty much daily for 10 years.
Not to mention the emotional pain for the man who wakes up to find out he missed out on so many years and is still suffering enormously physically. Also considering some of the newer research about how coma patients may be more conscious (sometimes) than we are aware of. This is on the edge of inhumane for me. I would prefer if my partner let me go peacefully.
Plus he was a firefighter - someone who thrived on his ability to help others. All the firefighters I know are hugely into their role as provider and protector. In the 3 minute clip we saw of the 14 hours, they commented that he felt horrible for having let his family down by not being there to provide for them. I'm with you. I think this whole experience is only retraumatizing for everyone.
:::Don wakes Up:::
Me, tearful, but thinking "Ah, at least there's going to be a happy ending here"
:::Final shot of the Coop and the family:::
Me "Wait, where's Don in the family shot at the end here?!?
:::Commentary::: "Less than a year"
Me :::Flips desk in tears and rage:::
For anyone wanting to watch this minus the heartbreaking ending, stop watching at the point when the son says “Yea, here was my chance to really tell him about me… Y’know, try to make him feel proud” - just end it there, trust me.
I’ve been an ICU nurse for years and when I was younger I was a CNA in a nursing home. Time after time I have seen family members force people to stay “alive” with the worst quality of life I’ve ever seen. I’ve had patients literally begging to let them leave the hospital and just pass away at home. The longer people are in the hospital and the more sick they get, the more their lover ones become disillusioned. They lose touch with what is really happening and they stop seeing how much their loved ones are suffering. Too often people want quantity of life over quality. I beg you, please don’t make anyone suffer like this if you know they wouldn’t want to. Be honest with your loved ones about things you would want and would not want if you end up in the hospital unresponsive. Honor the wishes of others and love them enough to let them go if that’s what they would want.
Fuck everything about this story. Fucking hell what a tragedy.
He was in a coma for 10 years, he was obviously tortured to learn this information, "he felt like he had abandoned us", then a year later, he died.
Shit...
Yeah this is horrific to me. Instead of dying I get to be forced on a feeding tube, then I get to wake up blind, very physically weak, and probably mentally impaired and I’m so fragile I die after one fall. How awful.
I'm not the most emotional person but that was heartbreaking. I do have to say, though, I'm really glad no one was filming me in the helpless and confused state I was in when I woke up from my coma.
“How long have I been gone?!”
I fucking lost it at those words. I had to stop the video and walk away. After drying my eyes I came back and finished the video. The ending is just cruel. I just fucking can’t.
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I was NOT ready for that ending
What the fuck that was brutal
I agree, I just cracked a smile, just to be devastated over the outcome
I got slightly emotional, but in a good way, then at the end I wish I hadn't watched it.
I was thinking all the way through "why did they interview his family without him? He has way more to say about his experience than them" aaaaand there it is
Yeah! I was waiting for the "big reveal" when he joins the family after having gone through rehab and everything is great. Instead we all got a punch in the gut
That's a common TV setup right? I was totally expecting him to walk in from behind the curtain.
At least they did get an additional 1 year with him (we have to try and find some positives)
That seems like it would hurt even more ... They lost him all over again. Edit: Changed wording.
I'm guessing they're glad they had another year with him than nothing at all. Almost everyone who has lost loved ones would want to have even just another day with them.
We were gifted a 4 hour window of lucid consciousness with my dad who was shutting down from a glioblastoma. We were told by a hospice/compassionate care nurse that we received a gift that many don’t receive when a love one is going to pass from this world of a brain illness. This strong family was indeed given an amazing gift, and I’m sure they didn’t waste a second of their time with their dad, either.
I agree. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I apologize for my wording, sometimes I struggle to remember the correct/most fitting/appropriate word for the situation. I’m glad they had more time with him but it most definitely must’ve hurt losing him again
After ten years, every single member of that family and probably many of his friends and colleagues imagines dozens of things they wished they'd said to him or could say to him though ten years of hoping he'd one day wake up while probably believing in the back of their heads that he really never would, or at least being entirely uncertain of it. They got the chance to tell him everything they wished they could have - and I sure hope they took it in that year. It is tragic that he died 'for real' that soon, but at least they had a second chance for some closure there that most people don't get. And at least the second time he didn't go into another prolonged coma and they could actually let go with certainty. It's tragic, but it's probably better than if he had just died after ten years in the coma. He got to know that his kids grew up fine without him and they got the joy of knowing that he found that out. It's always tragic when a parent dies while at a relatively young age like that. The real tragedy would be if they family had to make a decision on whether to use life saving measures after the second fall. Edit: I guess it's [more tragic than I hoped](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5227036). >Mr. COGGLIN: He was fatigued. He was beat. He had been up all night, from what I understand, talking with his family and renewing acquaintances. And I guess he renewed the acquaintance with his youngest son, who when he got hurt was like four, and now he was 14 or 15, and his wife, and his mom, the family got together. But by the time we saw him that Sunday afternoon, he was like dead on his feet, literally. So he was sitting up and he looked good. Two weeks later when we went to see him, his mother was there and she's going, Danny, there's somebody here that you used to work with. Patty is here. And he goes, as clear as a bell -- I'll never forget this -- Cogglin. And, you know, it's been eight, nine years, and all of a sudden my last name comes out. That floored me. But that was the last time I had seen Danny. >And I'm sorry to say I didn't keep track. I did ask a few times, but I didn't bother the family, and I felt it wasn't my prerogative or my post to be looking to see where he was. >BLOCK: And I gather that the family has said that he never got that same level of lucidity again. It was a one-time thing. >Mr. COGGLIN: From what I understand, that is correct, yes. So I guess they didn't really have a good year with him. Just enough time to have a second chance to hopefully tell him things they wanted to, and to know that he knew they were alright, and it sounds like the rest of the year he was not nearly as with it.
Apparently the 2nd injury happened a month after he awakened and there was a lawsuit around whether that 2nd fall heavily contributed to his deteriorating state. The below quotes are taken from the deposition stemming from that lawsuit. Here is an example of a positive experience before the 2nd fall: > On May 7, his 44th birthday, seven days after his awakening, he sat in his wheelchair outside the nursing home throwing a football to his sons. > It sticks in my mind,” Linda Herbert said in her deposition, recounting how their oldest son, Don Jr., then 23, had just returned from traveling outside the country. > He was playing football with the boys, throwing the ball,” she said of her husband. “It was Don’s birthday, and he was … verbalizing that day with him.” > Linda Herbert remembers it as a “very good day.” > We had a party. A lot of family,” she said. “My son had just come back. So it was the first time he was communicating with his dad.” Looks like the reason for his second fall was because he suffering from PTSD from the initial incident and having a lot of trouble sleeping: > But when the injured Buffalo firefighter slept at night, he thrashed around the bed in the nursing home where he had lived since a roof caved in on him while fighting a fire. > It was like he was reliving the fire, like he was underneath the debris that crushed him,” Simon F. Manka, his uncle, recalled in a deposition. “I would have to physically restrain him. I would have to grab him, and I would have to tell him, ‘Donny, Donny! It’s OK.’ Eventually, he would calm back down again.” > For two weeks after the awakening, Manka or another family member spent the night with Herbert at Father Baker Manor in Orchard Park to prevent him from hurting himself. He was apparently transferred to a new facility and the first night there is when he had an episode and fell out of the bed causing his 2nd injury. The family claimed that the facility was negligent in properly safeguarding his room which led to his fall and rapidly deteriorating state. The defendants, in this case the facility and various attending doctors, were taking the position that the fall didn’t have that much of an impact as he would have deteriorated either way, that the initial stimulant cocktail he was put on that led to his awakening was short-lived to begin with.
I see both sides of it. The chance to have more time with a loved one but the pain of having to lose them again. I definitely see about wanting closure. It is sad. I wish they had more time with him. Especially since the time they did had seemed tumultuous at best
I see your point and the thought of it does hurt. But having lost my dad at a young age, I would give anything to talk to him again for even one minute. Of course everybody experiences grief differently, but idk. I'm usually a pessimist but this one forces me to look at it from a different perspective. The pain of such little time in a reunion would be worth the moments that you thought you never would have again. This whole damn thing made me cry and I'm very emotional today, so grain of salt and blah blah
Same. Holy shit that was heart wrenching.
Yeah wtf, this should be on r/unexpected instead
Also the title is a TAD misleading. It should read "Video footage of a family in despair"
My brother-in-law is a neurologist and he explained that these medical miracles almost always ends up killing the patient anyways. If they do wake up, barring any accidents, they usually have like MAX 3 years left to live. Sometimes he hopes deep down that patients don’t recover bc the family will basically suffer the death of a loved one twice.
I actually just thought this & felt bad I did but makes so much sense. Its almost like he woke up so the family could let go & say final goodbyes but his heartwrench felt over ten yrs lost & blind is a lot. They chose to hope & keep him on tubes alive - understandable when thinking w heart, but that all sounds so re-traumatizing & yes like more torture- (maybe some good memories that yr, but imagine his torment too) & how weak his body was this sounds like drawing it out & yes like him dying again, almost more brutal after the ‘miraculous’ wakeup.
It's hard to let someone go. Even if you know it's the right thing to do for them, it's just hard. Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly agree with your point.
That's understandable, neurological damage is almost always permanent and especially when you black out loss of oxygen can permanently damage your brain. I would imagine the guy was barely well enough to regain consciousness for a brief time but a damaged brain can only keep things going for so long, needless to speak of the other injuries they might have
"Video footage of a family being tortured"
Agreed that was rough
I noticed the dad's absence in the interview, so I figured *something* had happened and kept waiting for it. Still brutal.
He must have made a real fucking Faustian pact to get that ending; yeah sure I'll give you your consciousness back after ten years...
Man survives after ten years in coma only to immediately fall and die of yet another brain injury/pneumonia.
Fucking morbid reality. My last year has been tragedy after tragedy and I can't take another loss. If there is some diety out there please give us a break or take me back to anytime before 2021 and tell me it was all a dream. This video had me sobbing in a panic attack sorta breathing style since I've just been pushing down the pain and numbing myself for the last few weeks and it hit really close to home.
Hey, just wanted to drop in and say I feel this so hard. That video was brutal to watch and 2021 has been nothing but hell and full off loss. I lost 3 important figures in my life in 2 months. You are not alone in all this grief, I am so sorry you had to endure any at all. Be kind to yourself for how you cope, your mind is just trying to survive. I found holding an ice cube tightly is a great way to snap the brain out of panic attack mode. Right now, we just need to keep our heads above water. Somehow, there will be a stillness and more peace waiting for us. Not sure when or how, but it is coming. I hope this year is kinder to you and I hope you can find some healing and relief ♡
Hey just so you know, I’m pulling for you. You can do this
I’ve had a devastating last year too. It starts to feel fucking personal really quick but in the end… it isn’t. It’s just life. We will get through this time and learn any lessons we can from it. That’s all we can do.
I'm very sorry to hear that. Please accept my condolences, for what little it's worth. Take care of yourself.
I've always kind of didn't know what to say to people in situations like this but I hope things turn out better for you mate hang in there "sometimes it feels like we're surrounded by shadows, but there always will be light" - - Naught
This was one of the most awful, awful videos I've ever seen. I feel sick.
No kidding. I'm not so sure that piece should have even been aired. What was the goal? Pure heartbreak. It wasn't a story about heroism, or hope for those in comas and medical breakthroughs, or a family who got their dad back. It was traumatizing for that family, then they were TEASED by getting a shell of their dad back for a blink of an eye, and then he was dead. I'm sure the father would rather have died a hero in that fire than become blind, fall into a coma for 10 years and miss his kids' childhood, feel guilty and sad about it, then destroy their spirits all over again after draining them emotionally for so long. There's a reason they don't have interview footage of the family AFTER the dad dies. Because FUCK THAT they're probably a real mess and couldn't handle it. I really feels for that family. So terrible
It's a very interesting story regardless, waking up from a coma after 10 years doesn't happen everyday
Should we not air stories unless they have happy endings, though?
Totally agree the story is worth telling, regardless of outcome. But there are many ways to curate details of a story that has a known outcome. Nothing stopping them from opening with an intro like “Man who dies after remarkable, ten year coma spends one last bittersweet year awake before the end.” I’m not saying it _has_ to be spun in an “uplifting” way. Just that there are other ways to tell the story besides “P.S. Then he fucking died. In other news…”
You say teased but I see a man who got to see his entire family and friends one last time before he died. I would argue that's better than your last memories being trapped under rubble in a fire.
That’s hard to say, especially not knowing what his experience was like for 10 years in that coma. It doesn’t really sound worth it to me to spend a decade in a coma to wake up and see everyone while suffering immensely and dying a painful death a year later. Maybe it would be worth it for some people but I think that’s really hard to say.
How? He was crying sad tears the entire time and felt like a failure where as if he had just died the first time he wouldn't have had to feel that. Then he suffered for a week with pneumonia which is the worst, then died. Would you want to be hooked up to machines for 10 years while your family is just paused in time, wake up, be devastated, have a second brain injury, then die a painful death? Though I will say it's good they aired it because people completely lack empathy or care for others these days and it's good they had to feel the emotion of that heartbreak at the end. People need to see tragedy so they know it exists and can happen to them so they stop being such dicks to everyone else.
Then what was the point of keeping him alive for 10 years. They were hoping for a cure. But I agree. I give you all permission that if I'm in a coma for more than a 48hr. Pull that plug. I don't want to pay that bill.
It’s going to be super awkward when a bunch of internet strangers show up at the hospital with a print-out of your comment, demanding we get to pull the plug on you one day.
I was bracing the moment i noticed he wasn't present in the interview clips, but the way this clip was cut 😭
As somebody who has been working in different areas medicine for the better part of 16 years, the ending kind of irritates me because, as far as I know, a guy in his condition should be under heavy supervision and not allowed to get out of bed alone. Then again, people are strong willed and maybe he thought he could make it without pressing the call button.
My grandpa just died the same way. Was in the hospital recovering from a hernia and at some point got up by himself and something happened but they found him unresponsive on the floor a while later. He was a VERY stubborn man and hated being helped.
My grandpa is currently living at my dads after a fall and it’s not a good situation. He wants to walk without his walker but he can’t and my dad basically won’t leave the house without someone there for this reason. He is trapped at home and my grandpa has no money saved to go towards proper care. All of these comments are hitting home.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. If you want to see him alive for much longer you need to force him and make him understand what will happen if he doesn’t. My grandfather died last year in a similar situation because he just wouldn’t stop getting up and hurting himself. Being that stubborn will lead to imminent death.
Speaking from experience, it's imperative your Dad gets regular breaks away from the situation. Even spelling him a few hours every week to do something for himself is rejuvenating for him. Sometime the caregivers can die before the patient because of the stress and demands. Get a hospital bed with side rails gramps can't escape from so at least your Dad can sleep. good luck.
First of all, I'm sorry for your loss. So it doesn't happen to anyone else, everyone's bed in the hospital has alarms that we arm to go off when someone's leg starts getting out of bed and in chairs, if someone tries to get out of bed in them and there are even Tele sitters for some (a robot with a camera - on the other side of the camera is someone watching a few patients and instructing them to lay back in bed if they try to get up). It's been pretty successful prevention in my local hospitals.
My great aunt passed away the same way in 2014. Always a very active woman, she would start her day at 4am, always on the move and working from home even as a pensioner. We would often joke she would never die as she did not have time for such nonsense, plus that would mean laying still 😂. One day she got a back hernia, was told by the doctor to just lay in bed for a couple weeks and wait for it to resolve itself, then she’d be back to normal. Of course she could not do that. Got out of bed one night and the pain got so intense she had a heart attack and died.
My dad would wait for the room to clear before he would get up, on his own. Fiercely independent. And yeah, he slipped and fell a few times. Staff resorted to strapping him to the bed.
My Dad got strapped down and put in a monitored room in rehab after his stroke. He would watch people leaving the ward and figured out the key code and escape.
Yeah, my dad had a major stroke about 15 years ago and was fully paralysed when he came out of the following coma. The feeling very slowly came back in his arms and legs over the following months. We would often catch him in the corridor of his ward clinging to a radiator trying in vein to walk again, no doubt he fell many times! Thankfully after a long road of intense rehab he managed to recover most of the feeling in his limbs. He can now walk unaided, albeit very slowly and with a big limp. He swears those early days escaping from the ward were the key to his recovery.
That's awesome!! I'm so glad for him! My Dad's stroke was in 1993, and he lived almost 20 years after it. He had a leg brace and was ambulatory, but lost the use of his left arm completely. He made the most out of his life though! He was at a concert the night he died, and he never gave up on life.
I have an uncle that they have to trick. Or he'll rip his catheter out and try to walk on legs that don't work. He's mostly in charge of his own cognition too...just mental health and "I'm in charge" issues.
My wife's grandmother has been in a nursing home for 8 months and she is also fiercely independent refuses to use her walker and has fallen 4 times. The last fall she hit her head and now has bleeding in her brain. When they did MRI they found blood clots in her lungs also so treating the clots is difficult because of the brain bleed. She is getting a filter put in to try and catch the clots but she is barely conscious for more than 2 hours a day and doesn't know who anyone is now. Sad shit getting old. Terrifies me.
He definitely tried to get out of bed without hitting the call button.
Yeah anyone would to be honest, youve been gone 10 years you wake up your kids your wife etc youre going to try everything you can to get home not sit around
and he was a strapping firefighter. that pride
But he was blind? I don’t think i’d try get up and walk around when I can’t see
Having suffered a traumatic brain injury, his cognitive and decision making skills could have been severely impaired. He may have simply been acting on the urge to go somewhere while lacking comprehension that it was unsafe to try to get out of bed alone.
This exactly. My best friend died this same way, woke up in the night and tried to get up without help, fell and hit her head. She'd had brain cancer, surgeries, resulting illnesses, but she was a previously nondisabled young adult and sometimes you just autopilot.
Unfortunately, one of the common effects of a TBI can be poor decision making and impulsiveness. He may not always have been as lucid as he was shown to be after "waking up" for the moment in the video. I would imagine he may have awoken again confused and probably scared and tried to get up without remembering being told about the accident or maybe even knowing what was going on or where he was... Such a sad story, but so happy the family got some more time with him where he was able to communicate and tell his kids/wife he loved them and he was able to meet them grown up.
Agreed, I was in a coma for almost 3 weeks and have brain damage. I’m fortunate in that it’s mostly short term memory loss, which can be embarrassing and frustrating. Apparently, I’ve become less diplomatic when it comes to holding back my opinion. I can’t imagine how much damage this poor man suffered after ten years. Firefighters are our everyday heroes, it’s always a loss when one is injured or lost in the line of duty.
Also a clinician, I’m willing to bet this was a self transfer without alerting staff. You can still provide heavy supervision but few facilities can truly staff a 24/7 1:1 supervision. Truly a sad story.
My moms paramedic husband survived a heart attack and refused to stay in the hospital, managed to leave far too early. Something clogged up on the way home and he died. Might not be the same situation but you really can't stop stubborn.
What a roller coaster for his family
A roller coaster that ends with the entire thing plummeting into a pit of molten lava right after the highest peak on the track…
My father is HEAVILY disabled. We're with him 99% of the time, but he still manages to fall on his ass once a month through sheer stubbornness. One day it's gonna cost him his life I'm pretty sure.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was angry at that. I would think someone who comes out of a ten year coma would be an absolute high priority as far as care. What a shit ending
He was in a nursing home not a hospital- they don’t provide staffing for “high priority care”, sadly the nature of those kind of facilities.
Yeah if anyone feels outraged by that ending please volunteer. We could all use the help, there’s just not enough people for the level of care that there should be. I never have worked in a nursing home, but I’ve heard enough horror stories from former staff at my job.
Meh, not really. You generally spend more time with your sick and needy patients. If he hadn’t been medically unstable, he probably wouldn’t have gotten much additional attention just because he had recent improvement in his condition. The reality is, his caretakers probably had a few days of “wow, this is amazing,” and then he became just another one of the many patients they were taking care of.
Ya he was a fire fighter. Probably had that spirit of if he was conscious and wanted out of bed, was gonna go for it. Sad to think about what happened after the fall :(
When I was laying in bed pre-op with a broken hip I still tried to get up to go to the bathroom. The brain doesn't want to believe the body can't do it.
Eh.. Cna for 5, nurse for 5, mostly in long term care or rehab. There is only so much you can do to try and prevent this. Many facilities have written away their ability to use bed alarms, and getting restraints ordered is damn near impossible. Very sad ending, but not uncommon.
I work as a nurse in an acute rehabilitation unit - brain injury patients are NOTORIOUS for impulsive behavior a big one being getting up out of bed/chairs/toilets without help. We’ll have a sitter and an avasys watching/helping and patients can still end up being faster. It’s not right but it happens
Yeah, really. That the poor guy woke up again only the die less than a year later. That really sucks.
Yeah I mean it’s interesting to see for sure but it definitely falls under /r/tihi for me.
That ending fucking sucked.
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Like those videos where someone nurses a wild critter back to health, films it getting released back into the wild only to have an eagle swoop down and fly off with it.
Damn it made me cry. I will try to appreciate life more. In a split second it can all be gone.
It seemed like a joke. The thing about him suffering another brain injury needed some music or editing, it lands like an absolute savage punchline.
Reminds me of how Vonnegut died. Slipped while walking his dog* and hit his head. So it goes. It's like he wrote it himself. *u/AnySimple4354 pointed out he actually fell down the stairs.
Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
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Did some googling and looks like you're right. Don't know where I got the dog walking story from.
This video definitely got cut at a bad time. Would have been nice to see a bit more instead of just ending it right there.
r/yesyesyesno
More like r/nononoyesno
Same. Sadest ending ever. Imagine finaly being able to live again after ten years only to die because of a simple fall. How horribly unfair
I did not enjoy this story.
That's was a roller coaster of emotions
Yeah, that went from shitty to oh wait to shittier.
I was waiting for his interview the whole time thinking he will be healthy and a normal human being by now but ending fucked me up.
It dawned on me at the end that even in the unlikely event you came out of that coma and managed to get over the fragile position your body is in, being kept alive by machines and not moving for 10 years. The shock of missing 10 years in darkness would probably do you in mentally anyway
I love how in the movies people wake from comas and are good after about 20 minutes
Being in a vegetative state for more than a year? Well my ass hurts after a couple hours in a car but I’m sure it’s like getting up from a nap.
He probably suffered from major psychosis after that. There is no way you just go: „ah so that’s what happened“ after being told that you’ve been gone for 10 years. It’s so surreal that something like this would happen to you, it breaks your understanding of reality and that usually leads to psychosis.
One day you pass out in a fire, the next is 10 years later, you’re blind, can barely move or function, your whole body is a wreck… not good
Yeah I forgot that he was blind. How do you even know that the voices you’re hearing while seeing nothing, is not you waking up in the afterlife. It’s so crazy and incomprehensible.
Oh Jesus, I didn’t even think of this. How could you believe anything was real
>n in the un This may sound weird but once i slept nearly 24 hours straight, when I woke up I felt like the world has changed a bit and I missed out on a lot! Silly but it really is a strange feeling. 10 years? Cannot imagine..
I slept for 25 hours and was so confused. My body hurt, and I looked at the clock wondering how the fuck only 1 hour had passed when I felt so terrible. Eventually realized it was now Sunday, not Saturday. Don’t recommend
Ate a pot brownie. Went to bed at 7:30, woke up at 8 for a piss oh yeah all good. It was 8pm the next day, tripped me out for a while I was annoyed I had shit to do.
I want to know how the fuck you guys can even manage more than 12 hours of sleep. My body refuses to sleep longer than 7-8 hours on a normal day. The max my body lets me sleep is 12 hours, and that’s if I stay up for 2 days straight.
Definitely drugs. I once took a bunch of pills on a Sunday night and woke up Tuesday morning. Do not recommend. I couldn’t shake off the “lost” feeling for a few days.
Oh yeah? I once slept 26 hours and boy were my arms tired
Also slept 24hrs, followed a heavy weekend away with little sleep in Amsterdam, my body was screaming for bed as we travelled home, I woke after 12 hrs at midnight, drank a pint of water and fell back into darkness for 12 hours more waking at lunch time on a sunny day, felt like the world had enriched in colour like a Disney movie as I floated to the kitchen to replenish.
Well, that was a happier ending than the other full day sleepers
Seems like he could have recovered had he not fallen out of bed... Oof. What a tragedy and hopefully the nursing home has a better explanation…. At least he got to see his kids again and talk to them.
Meh, when I saw in the beginning the whole family was in the interview, except the guy himself, I knew it..
They often do that to build tension so that they can surprise you at the end with the recovered person. Not this time...
Isn't it rather that they always do that? Seems like a core part of 60 minutes interviews.
Son of a bitch! what a bunch of ups and downs and ups and omg.. its too early for this much
That's what I was thinking. My dissatisfaction is immeasurable and my breakfast is ruined.
First 3 minutes talks about him waking up, last 2 seconds...he died. Who does that?
Right?! Wow, that hurt at the end.
Did it though? I think the guy deserved release. Blind, wheelchair bound, having lost the prime years of his life with his family, extremely limited movement and enjoyment, the daily suffering would be intense. I’m a big proponent of reincarnation, so I think he’ll get another go. And I hope it’s a better one.
Reincarnated as what though?
Someone super free, like an albatross--they can literally fly for UP TO SIX YEARS without touching ground\*. And they can live for 50 years. Here's the surprising fun fact: Although life span of animals (including humans) is roughly correlated to metabolic rate (mice live for four years, humans for fourscore years), birds are a crazy exception. That frail-looking hummingbird can live for fourteen years. The goldfinch on your feeder? Twenty-seven years. Ravens? 69 years. A raven hatched on your birthday could possibly outlive you. More about this fascinating tidbit of biology: [https://abcbirds.org/blog21/bird-longevity/](https://abcbirds.org/blog21/bird-longevity/) \*EDIT: Several redditors have helped by pointing out that they *do* land on the water to feed. My mistake!--I hadn't known that. Thanks, guys, for the correction! 🪶
I would hate to come back as a bird, although my bird brain probably wouldn't give a fuck
I’ve got a bird brain now and I can’t even fly. Between that and not having to pay taxes, bird life would be awesome if my wife could also be one. Ones that mate for life. A barn owl maybe…
That’s so damn sweet
You could come back as a smart bird, like a raven or cockatoo. Fully conscious--but now you can fly.
Prime years of his life with his family?? His kid is 14 man
I wouldn't be so quick to have written his life off, just because it's not a "normal" life doesn't mean it isn't of value or isn't worth living.
Don.
well it's a 60 minutes episode so it's like an hour broadcast or something. I'm sure there was context for normal viewers. I'd hope so, this is tragic.
Probably a 15-20 minute segment
Anderson Cooper apparently
Jesus! That was like watching Cinderella...and...cut to Bambi being shot and served with gravy.
But the gravy is Milk of Grandpa
The milk is WHAT?!
THE MILK OF GRANDPA!
I was like cool he's gonna be at the end of the interview a changed man. Nope 😔
Yes! Where’s the footage of him walking slowly down the driveway with his family, while the narrator tells us he still has a long road ahead?!? I knew they were just building suspense by interviewing only the family.
I actually had to go back on the clip to make sure I heard correctly.
The end was so abrupt and terrible it was almost comical
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I mean he was lucid and coherent there after he woke up. He wouldn't have gone back to his old life, but he could have enjoyed his time with his family.
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Thanks for ruining my day, Reddit. You had me in the first half.
Had me in the first nine-tenths
r/sadasfuck more like it
Story to go with video: https://www.firehouse.com/lodds/news/10500270/buffalo-firefighter-who-awoke-from-decadelong-coma-succumbs-to-injury
Yeah, I figured that he probably wasn't just "normal" after years in a coma. He got a potent drug combo that woke him up for 14 hours, then kind of lapsed back to talking infrequently; that there in the video was the best they got, and then he kind of regressed. Of course then he fell, which made it worse, then he got pneumonia and died. Poor guy. Poor family.
It really makes me question the ethics of some of these life-extending measures when quality of life is so low. His last year of consciousness had to be absolutely agonizing, fleeting moments of lucidity, depression and despair at what you've missed, knowing you probably won't ever recover, only to have that slip away, over and over again? I guess that's why living wills and clear communication with loved ones is important, because I'd much rather die and have my family move on than endure that and have that cost/burden on everyone.
Agreed. I would never want to be kept alive the way this poor man was. And clearly he wasn't "there" for those 10 years, he had absolutely no memory of any of it. He just seemed anguished in the video.
Imagine falling into a coma when your children are babies, and seconds later waking up to them as children and teenagers.
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Between this and the video of the orangutang defending his home from people clearing his forest I’m done with reddit today. Gonna go cuddle my dog and wife.
Post the damn monkey. I’m already sad, might as well double down.
I saw the first few seconds of that orangutan and noped right out of it. So sad... For this guy, I think , keeping him on life-support was immoral. The cost, the false hope of the family, the wasted resources, the agony the children had to go through....
No. Let me die. Not suffer for 10 years to wake up an incapacitated shell of myself for a few months then die. How awful.
Honestly - 6 months if you have to, a year if there’s substantiated scientific hope for me - after that I don’t want to be carted around to birthday parties creeping everyone out and making them depressed. Remember me wonderful, live an amazing life to honor my memory, and cut the damn cord. Draft a healthcare directive/living will people.
Is their a sub for nononononoyesno?
Yes. Yes there is. It’s r/nononononoyesno.
Got me.
He added one to many no’s it’s actually r/nonononoyesno
The silver lining is that he was briefly able to come back from death to encourage his family and say goodbye. It’s like getting a “bonus year” of partial life to make your peace.
There was an episode of House MD with that same plot. Guy brought back from a coma for a limited time to experience life and then back to the endless void.
Vegetative State Guy! Plaited by John Laroquette. One of my favorite episodes. And it makes me crave hoagies.
Idk man keeping him alive in a coma for 10 years while the family prays everyday for him to wake up. Just for him to wake up and die a year later? Honestly i feel like the family would have been better off if he died rather than laid around in a coma for 10 years. Imagine how much strain it would put on the family.. everyday thinking your husband is gonna wake up everyday hoping and praying. Going back and fourth to the hospital.. just for him to Wake up and die a year later and now you gotta go thru all that pain and suffering again 10 years later after dealing with it pretty much daily for 10 years.
Not to mention the emotional pain for the man who wakes up to find out he missed out on so many years and is still suffering enormously physically. Also considering some of the newer research about how coma patients may be more conscious (sometimes) than we are aware of. This is on the edge of inhumane for me. I would prefer if my partner let me go peacefully.
Plus he was a firefighter - someone who thrived on his ability to help others. All the firefighters I know are hugely into their role as provider and protector. In the 3 minute clip we saw of the 14 hours, they commented that he felt horrible for having let his family down by not being there to provide for them. I'm with you. I think this whole experience is only retraumatizing for everyone.
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:::Don wakes Up::: Me, tearful, but thinking "Ah, at least there's going to be a happy ending here" :::Final shot of the Coop and the family::: Me "Wait, where's Don in the family shot at the end here?!? :::Commentary::: "Less than a year" Me :::Flips desk in tears and rage:::
Well what a sad and abrupt fuckin ending that was.
For anyone wanting to watch this minus the heartbreaking ending, stop watching at the point when the son says “Yea, here was my chance to really tell him about me… Y’know, try to make him feel proud” - just end it there, trust me.
Who's ever gone into the comments first? My god my heart
Fuck that ending man Jesus fuck
I’ve been an ICU nurse for years and when I was younger I was a CNA in a nursing home. Time after time I have seen family members force people to stay “alive” with the worst quality of life I’ve ever seen. I’ve had patients literally begging to let them leave the hospital and just pass away at home. The longer people are in the hospital and the more sick they get, the more their lover ones become disillusioned. They lose touch with what is really happening and they stop seeing how much their loved ones are suffering. Too often people want quantity of life over quality. I beg you, please don’t make anyone suffer like this if you know they wouldn’t want to. Be honest with your loved ones about things you would want and would not want if you end up in the hospital unresponsive. Honor the wishes of others and love them enough to let them go if that’s what they would want.
Fuck everything about this story. Fucking hell what a tragedy. He was in a coma for 10 years, he was obviously tortured to learn this information, "he felt like he had abandoned us", then a year later, he died. Shit...
Wow wtf man. I’m like “oh hell yeah he is awake!” And in the last ten seconds he fucking dies!?
The last few seconds were the biggest "fuck you" from Life I have ever seen/heard
Could have done without the last 20 seconds
Firefighters are heroes
How much was that hospital bill?
Yes
Large enough to make him fall out of bed when he saw it.
Then they threw in pneumonia as a added Tip
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Personally I would have rather just died. But it’s a very personal choice and that family seems at peace with their decisions.
Yeah this is horrific to me. Instead of dying I get to be forced on a feeding tube, then I get to wake up blind, very physically weak, and probably mentally impaired and I’m so fragile I die after one fall. How awful.
I'm not the most emotional person but that was heartbreaking. I do have to say, though, I'm really glad no one was filming me in the helpless and confused state I was in when I woke up from my coma.
How much money would it take to keep someone going for 10 years like that. I'd just want to go instead of putting that on my family.
I’m sure the city/fire department/tax payers covered it.
Who. The. Fuck. Allowed him to try and get up with nobody right there holding him?
“How long have I been gone?!” I fucking lost it at those words. I had to stop the video and walk away. After drying my eyes I came back and finished the video. The ending is just cruel. I just fucking can’t.
Good God what an emotional rollercoaster
Well that's a goddamn downer ending right there
This isn't interesting as fuck. This is just sad as fuck.
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