List of people who awoke from a coma

Munira Abdulla

1959

1991

27 years

2018

Emirati

Coma caused by a car crash.

Riaan Bolton

1980

2003, July

3 years

2006

South African

Suffered severe brain trauma in a car crash. Emerged when his family learned about the effect of the drug Zolpidem on fellow coma victim Louis Viljoen (see below).

Gary Dockery

1954–1997

1988

>7.5 years

1996

American

Police officer who went into a coma after being shot in the forehead. Unlike most patients who come out of a coma after years, after two days of talking, he became unresponsive again.

Jan Grzebski

1942–2008

1988

4 years

1992

Polish

Railroad worker.

Donald Herbert

1961-2006

29 December 1995

>9 years

30 April 2005

American

Firefighter. Lapsed into a coma after a burning building collapsed on him, starving his brain of oxygen. He awoke more than nine years later and was able to speak to his friends and family before returning to a minimally responsive state. Died from pneumonia on 21 February 2006, aged 44.

Leonard Lowe

1920s-?

1939

>30 years

1969

American

Fell into a catatonic stupor resulting from encephalitis lethargica. In 1969, Dr. Oliver Sacks managed to awaken him and a few other Spanish flu-related catatonic patients using a medication called levodopa or L-dopa. After a brief period of being in a fully recovered state, Lowe and all of the other patients fell back into their catatonic stupors with occasional very short periods of reawakenings. Lowe's and the other patients' stories were the focus of the 1973 book Awakenings and the 1990 movie adaptation Awakenings.

Wanda Palmer

~1970/71–2024

2020, June

2 Years

2022, July

American

Beaten up and left for dead in a June 2020 attack. In July 2022, she awakened and identified her brother Daniel Palmer as the attacker. Daniel Palmer was arrested and died days later in custody.

Martin Pistorius

1975

3 years vegetative 4 years minimally conscious 5 years able to move only eyes

1999

South African

In 1999, he fully awakened. He recovered to the point that he was able to become a web designer, developer, and author. In 2011, he wrote a book called Ghost Boy, in which he describes his many years of being comatose.

Annie Shapiro

1913–2003

29 years

1992

Canadian

Annie Shapiro (1913–2003) was a Canadian apron shop owner who was in a coma for 29 years because of a massive stroke and suddenly awakened in 1992. After the patients in the true story Awakenings, Shapiro spent the longest time in a coma-like state before waking up. Her story inspired the 1998 movie Forever Love.

Louis Viljoen

~1970

1994

South African

Louis Viljoen (born c. 1970). In 1994, this South African switchboard operator fell into a persistent vegetative state after being hit by a truck while riding his bike. In 1999, Dr. Wally Nel gave him Zolpidem (also known as Ambien) after a nurse told Viljoen's mother that involuntary spasms in his left arm had caused him to tear his mattress and that this could have been because of him feeling uncomfortable deep inside. Within 25 minutes, he was talking, and by November 2006 he had recovered to the point where it is no longer necessary to give him Zolpidem. The drug has since been used to awaken other coma patients, and several have been awakened around the world since, such as Riaan Bolton (see above).

Terry Wallis

1964–2022

1984

~1 year coma 19 years in a minimally conscious state

American

Coma caused by truck crash.