I am already getting catcalls about my position regarding Terri Schiavo because of this new story of a wonderful surprise recovery of a NY fireman:
The Buffalo, N.Y., firefighter who started speaking after nearly 10 years might one day help scientists unravel the mysteries of coma and consciousness.
On Saturday, after almost a decade locked in his own world, answering “yes” and “no” questions but nothing more, Donald Herbert, 43, began a lengthy dialogue with loved ones, including his wife, Linda, and four sons, near his home in Orchard Park, a Buffalo suburb.
Scientists say such awakenings into normal consciousness and speech are rare, “but they are certainly telling us something about the human brain,” said Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan.Scientists there have been putting people like Herbert through extensive brain scans and cognitive tests to figure out how they regained coherent speech after so many years.
Herbert was initially in a coma after a roof came down on him during a fire rescue a few days after Christmas 1995. During the next year, he regained consciousness, though his speech was slurred, his vision blurred and he needed help with daily activities. He was bedridden and seemed to have no memory of family, friends or the world.
Then Saturday arrived and with it an untapped reservoir of words and memories of his wife, his sons, who were 14, 13, 11 and 3 at the time of the accident, and his extended family.
Of course, there is a marked difference between someone who is minimally conscious after a brief coma and someone who has languished in a persistent vegetative state for fifteen years, which is why, after all, the lawyers for the Schindler family kept trying to assert that Mrs. Schiavo was in a minimially conscious state- because there IS a possibility for recovery for people in a minimally conscious state:
But Gibbs argued that medical science has changed since Schiavo was last evaluated medically in 2003, and that she has improved since then.
Specifically, he said, Schiavo could be in a minimally conscious state rather than a persistent vegetative state, and therefore could possibly be helped through therapy.
Unfortunately, we will never know what Dr. Frist might have diagnosed from the floor of the Senate, but an inability to detect such ‘nuance’ is predictable from people who practice ‘faith-based’ medicine and whose understanding of biology is rooted in a rejection of evolution and a warm embrace of creationism and intelligent design:
The Kansas minister says many opponents of creation science and intelligent design curricula are shocked and surprised to learn that “there are a lot of intelligent people who happen to know a little bit about science and also about the Bible, and that we really are well represented with great knowledge when it comes to biblical science.”
As the organizer of a coalition of 1,200 activist conservative pastors, Fox says he has observed a growing interest in the heartland of America for schools to teach alternatives to the theory of evolution, such as creationism and intelligent design. “We think that there needs to be a balance put into the public schools,” he says. “They’ve had one side for a long time.”
In the hearings this week, the State Board of Educators will be allowing testimony from 24 opponents of the current pro-evolution science standards in Kansas. Three conservative Board members have decided to permit both sides to spend up to $5,000 in state money to bring in witnesses.
Pastor Fox says there is a “conservative resurgence” going on in Kansas. He cites growing interest in the teachings of alternatives to evolution and last month’s passage of a state marriage amendment and as just two recent examples.
Yeehaw. Flame away.