Donald Herbert

J. James Estrada at American Thinker posted this interesting piece earlier today; it starts:

1,037 words. That was the length of the May 3rd New York Times story that ran with the headline, “Buffalo Fireman Regains Long-Lost Memories.” The two words that a learned reader would expect to appear in the article, but did not? Terri Schaivo. Talk about “long-lost memories.”

Donald Herbert, the firefighter who spent the last ten years in a state reminiscent of Schaivo, all of a sudden began asking for his wife and family. The Times story quotes a nursing home worker as saying the miracle occurred “out of the blue.” (By the way, they didn’t call it a miracle, I did).

Oh, my, this really gets the ponder going...

A little further reading here and here has me thinking that Mr. Estrada has a valid point, though he's stretching the facts a tad (or to be more charitable, at the time he posted there may not have been as many facts available). It appears that Mr. Herbert's condition was highly variable, and at times there was observable brain activity, which was very different than with Terry Schiavo's situation.

Still, it gives one pause when you think about ever deciding when to give up hope. Here's a fellow who was "drooling in a wheelchair" for almost ten years, and then a doc comes along with a new idea for treatment (a drug "cocktail") and next thing you know he's talking and wondering what happened to ten years of his life.

I hope some of those who were so eager to pull the plug on Terry will reflect on the miraculous recovery of Mr. Herbert...