Doctors told an Arizona woman’s family to take her off life support; she woke from her coma, to the surprise of everyone around her.
“Everything can be taken away. You can wake up one day and everything is fine, and then your life is a mess,” said Steven Pellettiere-Swapp. “Keep your family close and don’t let them go.”
Last month, Steven found his mother Lyndee Pellettiere-Swapp unconscious. She remained in a coma for 12 days.
The doctors told the family they could not do anything more for Lyndee. They recommended taking her off life support.
But Lyndee heard everything around her.
“I remember people talking to me,” she said, adding:
I remember when people came to visit, my niece reading to me. [Doctors] told [my family] that I would start to make noises when they turned off life support. I was very agitating. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t respond. I could just hear conversations around me and about me. I remember a doctor opening my eyes, messing with me, and telling my family I was not reacting.
She wanted to speak, but could not. Lyndee said that in her mind, she could hear herself speak, but her family heard nothing. However, when Steven whispered, “I’m a fighter” in her ear, she managed to repeat it.
“I need you to fight,” he had cried to her.
She responded and awoke, surprising her daughter, Amanda, the next day.
“I looked at her, and she just says, ‘Hi,’ and I just fell to my knees,” said Amanda. “I told her, ‘I thought you had been gone for 12 hours.'”
The experience has made the family take nothing for granted.
“I don’t take for granted that I get to come home and kiss my mom,” Steven said. “Every day I come home from work, seeing her and talking to her.”
Lyndee hopes people can learn from her story and encourage others not to give up on their loved ones.
“Just because you are not conscious does not mean you cannot hear,” she stated. “So you should talk to your loved ones if you are in that situation. They hear you.”
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