One Way Ticket:: Rom Houben

So, you think your life sucks a little? This guy was misdiagnosed with a coma, and trapped as a silent immovable prisoner in his own body! How long you may ask? 23 years!

Rom Houben was trapped in his own body for 23 years. Doctors assumed that he was just in a vegitive state after being in a near fatal car accident in 1983. They beleived that there was no hope for this man. For 23 years Rom was able to hear and recognize people from their voices. From the doctors and nurses that entered his room, to his own mother. He had to listen in silence as his mother told him when his father died. Rom says that he knew what was going on around him the whole time.

Steven Laureys, a neurologist was the one to discover Roms case. He decided to take a look at the state of diagnosed coma patients. He released Rom from his personal hell using a state of the art scanning system. Laureys found that Rom's brain was almost normal. He descovered that Rom was completely paralyzed AND he was also completely conscience. He was just unable to communicate.

Rom realised what had happened when he had come around from his accident. He knew that his body was completly paralised.

"I screamed but there was nothing to hear." he told the reporter via his keyboard.

Laureys findings reopen cases of patients that were terminated while in a false state of a coma. Laureys noted that coma patients are misdiagnosed at an alarming level. He examined 44 patients and out of 44 patients 18 of them were responsive as Rom was.

Rom Houben, you deserve a one way ticket to Heaven my good sir!

\m/><\m/-Knuckles