A woman from the United Arab Emirates has spoken to her son after 28 years of limited awareness, astounding doctors who said she was “a hopeless case”.
Munira Abdulla fell into a minimally responsive state after suffering a severe brain injury in a car crash in 1991, aged just 32.
For years there were no signs she would ever recover, but now has regained some consciousness after starting specialist treatment in 2017.
‘Never gave up’
The crash left Munira’s four-year-old son Omar with only minor wounds, but her brain injury was untreated for hours.
…don’t consider them dead when they are in such a state.
Doctors declared her to be in a minimally conscious state and she was fed through a tube and given physiotherapy to prevent muscle wastage.
Her son, now 32, said: “I never gave up on her because I always had a feeling that one day she will wake up.”
Joy
In 2017, Munira was transferred to a hospital in Germany.
Son Omar said a year after beginning the new treatment an argument in the hospital ward “caused her a shock”.
“Three days later I woke up to the sound of someone calling my name. It was her! She was calling my name, I was flying with joy; for years I have dreamt of this moment, and my name was the first word she said.”
‘Hope’
Munira has since continued to gain consciousness and is now able to converse.
Omar added: “The reason I shared her story is to tell people not to lose hope on their loved ones; don’t consider them dead when they are in such a state.
“All those years the doctors told me she was a hopeless case, and that there was no point of the treatment I was seeking for her, but whenever in doubt I put myself in her place and did whatever I could to improve her condition.”