A teenager in the UK has emerged from a 10-month coma to a reality that he could probably scarcely have expected.
Joseph Flavill, 19, was hit by a car while walking in Burton upon Trent in the UK on 1 March last year, three weeks before the country was thrown into a national lockdown owing to the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic on a global scale.
The Guardian reported that he has since spent months in a coma after he suffered a traumatic brain injury during the accident, but has since awoken and begun a slow recovery.
He has, however, no knowledge of the situation around him: of the pandemic, of why his family cannot be with him as he recovers, and of the fact that he even caught and subsequently recovered from the virus twice while he was in his coma.
His aunt, Sally Flavill Smith, told the Guardian: “He won’t know anything about the pandemic as he’s been asleep for 10 months. His awareness is starting to improve now but we just don’t know what he knows.
She said the family have tried to explain over video call that they’re unable to be with him in person due to the pandemic restrictions, but haven’t attempted to explain the scale of the pandemic.
“When he’s awake in his room, he’s not going to have any idea why he’s there. We do talk about it on the phone, and we try to make him aware that we really want to be there holding his hands, but we’re just unable to do it [because of Covid].
“But we try to keep it as simple as possible, we don’t really have the time to go into the pandemic hugely – it just doesn’t feel real does it? When he can actually have the face-to-face contact, that will be the opportunity to actually try to explain to him what has happened.”
Flavill Smith said the teenager, who is now receiving treatment at the Adderley Green care centre in Stoke-on-Trent, is able to follow commands such as touching his left and his right ear, move both of his legs, and answer yes and no through blinking, while his first smiles have brought the family to tears.
“We’ve still got a long journey ahead, but the steps he’s made in the last three weeks have been absolutely incredible,” said Flavill Smith.