14 DAY TRIAL // A 48-year-old woman who spent one week in a coma miraculously woke up when her loving husband played their favorite wedding songs.
Mother-of-four Maria Neal suffered a severe stroke seven weeks ago, while celebrating her husband Steve's 46th birthday. After being taken to a local hospital, the woman was put in an induced coma and then transferred to King's College Hospital in London where she underwent a two-hour brain surgery.
However, even after the operation, Maria was basically at death's door, as she didn't seem to show any signs of recovery and was put on a life-support machine. Doctors told the family she would never survive and warned them to prepare for the worst.
The entire family gathered at her hospital bedside and spent hours trying to coax her out of her condition. They were pretty desperate, as the medics had told them there was nothing they could do, so they thought that maybe their love and affection would have some impact on the woman, but their efforts were also in vain.
“We spent hours talking to her and trying to find anything that we thought would stimulate a response,” daughter Kyrstie said, as reported by Daily Mail.
But although Maria remained unconscious, her devoted husband Steve decided to play their two favorite songs, which the couple had danced to on their wedding day. To everyone's surprise, the woman responded when she heard “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers and Simply Red’s “If You Don’t Know Me By Now.”
Maria slowly started to show signs of response, gently moving her arms and nodding, and the next day even opened her eyes. Two weeks after the operation, she also began recovering her speech.
“Dad downloaded their wedding songs onto his phone and played them to mum with tears rolling from his face onto hers. This broke my heart but she started to move her right arm and a couple of days after this she started nodding,” Kyrstie added.
The woman is currently being treated at a specialist stroke rehab unit at Gravesham Community Hospital and can only return home occasionally for a couple of hours. Doctors have warned the family that despite her progress, Maria will never fully recover and will have to live with a disability for the rest of her life.
The family is now in the process of raising £30,000 ($50,730/€36,700) to transform the ground floor of their home into a suitable living place for her. They want to set up a wet room, a suitable kitchen and build a wheelchair ramp for access to the garden.