Saturday, June 2, 2007

Polish man wakes from 19-year coma

A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday.

Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda with his revival.

"It was Gertruda that saved me, and I’ll never forget it," Grzebski told news channel TVN24... (Reuters)

1988. That was the year this poor fellow went into his coma. I was 19 years old in 1988 and this was a year before I entered the US Navy. My life is very different now and the world has changed so much since then that he must feel like he's in the Twilight Zone. Cell phone, the internet, collapse of the USSR, democracy in Poland, etc. An amazing amount of stuff he needs to catch up on, much of which will seem incredible if not 'magic' to him. This real-life story reminds me of the excellent movie Goodbye Lenin which had a somewhat similiar plotline.

Hat tip: Innocent Bystanders

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