Never give up!

[Esav Benyamin]

Buffalo Fireman Regains Long-Lost Memories

A Buffalo firefighter who apparently suffered brain damage in a 1995 burning roof collapse and has since been virtually silent and nearly blind had a sudden unexplained recovery on Saturday, animatedly speaking to family and friends and trying to recover a lost decade.

"How long have I been gone?" the puzzled firefighter, Donald Herbert, 44, asked in a 14-hour marathon of hugs, kisses, reunions and conversations with his wife, four sons, other relatives and old firefighter comrades.

"We told him almost 10 years, and he said 'Holy cow!' " Simon A. Manka, his uncle, recalled yesterday. "He thought it had been three months."

In a news conference at Father Baker Manor, a skilled nursing home in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, where Mr. Herbert has been a patient for seven years, Mr. Manka said his nephew - who has passed most days in a wheelchair in front of a television set - abruptly returned to life and "began to speak after nine and a half years of silence."

Pending medical tests, Mr. Manka said, the extent and the probable duration of Mr. Herbert's recovery are unknown. "However, we can tell you he did recognize several family members and friends and did call them by name."

It happened out of the blue Saturday morning, a nursing home employee said.

"I want to talk to my wife," Mr. Herbert was quoted as saying. A staff member called his wife, Linda, but it was his youngest son, Nicholas, 13, who picked up the phone and began speaking.

"That can't be," Mr. Herbert said. "He's just a baby. He can't talk."

Nicholas was indeed a toddler when Mr. Herbert, then a 34-year-old member of a fire rescue squad, rushed into a burning two-and-a-half story apartment building in Buffalo on the morning of Dec. 29, 1995. He wore a breathing mask against heavy smoke and was searching the attic for victims when the roof collapsed.

Buried under flaming debris, Mr. Herbert was knocked unconscious and, according to reports at the time, went six minutes without oxygen before other firefighters pulled him free. They carried him out a window and down a ladder, and he was taken to Erie County Medical Center in critical condition.

(The entire article is available at the link above.)

 

[Larry S.]

He truly works in myaterious ways.......

Thanks, Ed!

 

[gajinoz]

The body's ability to fix itself is absolutely amazing. I guess sometimes it just takes a little longer than others.

 

[mwerner]

One of those science-channel thingies on "The Brain" talked about the amazing ability of the brain to re-wire itself; but that the process seems to be age-dependent. The younger you are, the more likelyhood of recovery.

That's why older folks having strokes tends to be permanently disabling.

 

[shaldag]

The brain's ability to change, or "rewire" itself, is indeed age dependent. For a long time, it was thought that there were "critical periods" during development for brain rewiring. It is true that during these periods, when the wiring of the brain is undergoing it natural development (the time depends on the species and specific brain circuit) the most radical rewiring takes place.

Dogma had it that the adult brain structure is fixed, and no more rewiring takes place. Of course, no-one really knew, as there was no way to directly observe changes in neuronal connectivity. This is no longer true. We now know that changes in connectivity or rewiring can occur in adulthood. This has been directly observed in the past few years, using new microscopic techniques allowing viualization of neuronal structure in the living brain.

Of course, in the adult, changes are more spase and slower than during development. However, changes in response to injury can br relatively quick. We do not know all the factors governing these changes, and a large percentage of the budget of the national Institutes of Health is spent trying to find exactly what processes govern this. This is really your tax dollars at work.

By the way, one recent study even showed changes in neuronal structure in Alzheimer's Disease model animals after experimental therapeutic treatment. Since these animals were quite aged, this showed that the brain is much more modifiable, at greater age, than previously thought.

Not to hijack the thread, but I just wanted to point out that the POTENTIAL for such miracles as this exists within all of us. (Not, of course, to discount the help from upstairs.) We need to figure out how to activate the potential for everyone's benefit.

 

[kamkazmoto]

God still has something for him to do. Thank you for the story

 

[MikeH]

It has been amazing the last 2-3/4 years watching my daughter's brain rewire itself after severe closed-head and brain stem injuries in a hit and run. Within five months of the time we were told as she lay in a vegetative state, "Don't expect any more than what you see. This is how she'll always be"' she responded suddenly one evening when I asked her to turn her head. From then until now the progress has seemed painfully slow, but she now bathes, dresses, clothes herself, puts on makeup, prepares her own meals, does her laundry, loads the dishwasher, gets around slowly on a walker, does artwork and writes poetry. We are still hopeful that she will speak again.

She thoroughly enjoyed Blade last year and is looking forward to going again this year.

I may be totally off base, but I tend to think of her progress in terms of weight lifting, where you make demands on your body that it must adapt to.
We constantly try new things, over and over, making repeated demands on her brain, until one day the new capability is there where it was not the day before. (I don't really know if I am helping her, or if God is just letting me feel useful while he does the real healing, but it gives me something to do.)

 

[gajinoz]

It has been amazing the last 2-3/4 years watching my daughter's brain rewire itself after severe closed-head and brain stem injuries in a hit and run. Within five months of the time we were told as she lay in a vegetative state, "Don't expect any more than what you see. This is how she'll always be"' she responded suddenly one evening when I asked her to turn her head. From then until now the progress has seemed painfully slow, but she now bathes, dresses, clothes herself, puts on makeup, prepares her own meals, does her laundry, loads the dishwasher, gets around slowly on a walker, does artwork and writes poetry. We are still hopeful that she will speak again.

She thoroughly enjoyed Blade last year and is looking forward to going again this year.

I may be totally off base, but I tend to think of her progress in terms of weight lifting, where you make demands on your body that it must adapt to.
We constantly try new things, over and over, making repeated demands on her brain, until one day the new capability is there where it was not the day before. (I don't really know if I am helping her, or if God is just letting me feel useful while he does the real healing, but it gives me something to do.)

First let me say it's excellent news that she is doing so well.

As for your weight lifting analogy, I have long believed that the brain is much like any muscle in your body. Don't use it and it's going to get flabby and useless. Exercise it, push it, challenge it and it's going to get strong.

I don't hold with supernatural involvement in these things but if it helps more power to you. Encourage her to challenge her brain, I'm sure it will speed things up. (That's my totally unscientific opinion. )

Good luck to you both.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

(I don't really know if I am helping her, or if God is just letting me feel useful while he does the real healing, but it gives me something to do.)

Mike, yesterday was the anniversary of Niccolo Machiavelli's birth in 1469. He was the author of that famous work on politics and leadership, "The Prince", in which he wrote: "God is with us, yet God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which is ours."

 

[gajinoz]

Mike, yesterday was the anniversary of Niccolo Machiavelli's birth in 1469. He was the author of that famous work on politics and leadership, "The Prince", in which he wrote: "God is with us, yet God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which is ours."

Now we're going to go waaaaaaaaaaaaay off track

Wasn't "The Prince" a pamphlet written to try and curry favour with the Medicis? (I'm no expert here.) I think a better view of the guy would be formed by reading his "Discourses on Livy".

Sorry, please return to your normal channel.

 

[shaldag]

MikeH,
your daughter is a great example of the brain rewiring itself, and the fact that we don't really understand what is going on. I look forward to meeting you both at Blade.