Man thought to be in coma for 23 years conscious whole time

 

Brussels – A Belgian man, at age 23, Rom Houben was in a car crash and thought to be in a vegetative state for 23 years, however he was discovered to be fully conscious the entire time.

For years he listened to the conversations going on around him but he was unable to communicate with his doctors or family.

Now 46-years-old, the accident has left him paralyzed. Houben told AP Television News that years of being unable to move or communicate left him feeling “alone, lonely, frustrated, but also blessed with my family.”
 

“It was especially frustrating when my family needed me. I could not share in their sorrow. We could not give each other support,” he wrote, punching the words letter by letter into a touch screen with one finger held by an assistant at the ’t Weyerke institute in eastern Belgium. Houben is now communicating with one finger and a special touch screen on his wheelchair.
 

“Just imagine,” Houben typed. “You hear, see, feel and think but no one can see that. You undergo things. You cannot participate in life.”
 

During Houben’s two lost decades, his eyesight was poor, but the experts say he could hear doctors, nurses and visitors to his bedside, and feel the touch of a relative. He says that during that time, he heard his father had died, but he was unable to show any emotion.
 

Over the years, Houben’s skeptical mother took him to the United States five times for tests. More searching got her in touch with Laureys, who put Houben through a PET scan.
“We saw his brain was almost normal,” said neuropsychologist Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, who has worked with Houben for three years.
 

The family and doctors then began trying to establish communication. A breakthrough came when he was able to indicate yes or no by slightly moving his foot to push a computer device placed there by Laureys’ team. Then came the spelling of words using the touch screen.
 

Houben’s condition has since been diagnosed as a form of “locked-in syndrome,” in which people are unable to speak or move but can think and reason.
 

With so much to say after suffering for so long in silence, Houben has started writing a book.
“He lives from day to day,” his 73-year-old mother said. “He can be funny and happy.”  Recently he went to his father’s grave for the planting of a tree.
 

Associated Press contributed