Terry Wallis had been unable to respond to the world since 1984, when the truck he was riding in veered off an Arkansas bridge and crashed, tires up, into the creek bed below. Wallis spent two weeks in a coma, a state of prolonged unconsciousness, then lived most of the next 19 years in a minimally conscious state in which he could not communicate with words or gestures. But in 2003, at the age of 39, Wallis surprised both doctors and his family with his first word—"Mom"—followed by many others. Studies later found that Wallis' brain had continued to repair itself. Tests done 18 months after he emerged showed that Wallis had regained some motor function, strength, and fluency of speech, while brain scans showed more connectivity in damaged parts of the brain.
While many considered Wallis' recovery a miracle, those 19 years in between produced an interminable stretch of questions without good answers. For one, what was Wallis aware of when he appeared not to be responding? Even today, a coma diagnosis is accompanied by uncertainty, says Jose Suarez, a professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of the Division of Neurosciences Critical Care. "Families want to know: Is he or she going to wake up?" he says. And, if their loved one does wake up, what will their life look like?
