According to the then-45-year-old woman, Lynda, her son Steven reportedly found her unconscious in their family home. The brave son immediately called 911, and his mom was rushed to the hospital.
For five days, she suffered seizures and eventually fell into a coma, where she remained for 12 days, according to her husband. Her husband, Steve, told the local news outlets that he prayed for a miracle.
Unfortunately, one day, the doctors told the family that there was nothing more they could do and recommended taking the woman off life support. The tough decision was made to pull the plug, honoring what the family thought was Lynda’s wishes.
As her family came to say their goodbyes, little did her family know, the amazing woman heard every word. “I remember people talking to me,” she recalled. “I remember when people came to visit, my niece reading to me.” She also remembered the doctors talking about her impending demise, telling the family what to expect as she inevitably passed away. “Doctors told my family that I would start to make noises when they turned off life support. It was very agitating. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t respond. I could just hear conversations around me and about me,” she said. “I remember a doctor opening my eyes, messing with me, and telling my family I was not reacting.”
She also knew she had to speak up in order to save her own life, but she tried and failed. “In my head, it was very clear what I was saying, but it wasn’t to them,” she explained. Then, she found all the motivation she needed in the words her husband leaned down and whispered in her ear, thinking she was about to leave this life. “They removed all tubes as he requested,” she recalled, adding that a doctor was waiting to “pronounce her dead” while an organ donation team was on standby, ready to take her organs. But, her husband Steve wasn’t ready for his wife to leave him. In a whisper, Steve pleaded with his wife, reminding her of a reality she was about to make everyone else aware of. After 12 days in a coma, she woke up, uttering three words that surprised her entire family. “I’m a fighter,” she managed to respond after Steve had spoken that very truth in her ear. “I was finally able to get out ‘I’m a fighter,’ which is what my husband was whispering in my ear,” she said, recalling the moment she woke up from her coma after being taken off life support. “He kept saying ‘I need you to fight.’”
Stunned, Steve quickly went to get the doctor. “My husband said, ‘She is doing everything you said she wouldn’t do,’” the woman recalled. Indeed, against all odds and medical predictions, shewas back, awake, and responding. Lynda even had to learn to walk and feed herself again. “They released me with home healthcare to continue learning everything,” she said. She also required numerous follow-up surgeries and hospitalizations, and she suffered PTSD from the experience. Almost two years later, the woman still had no answers as to why she first fell unconscious or how she made such a recovery. But, there was one thing she was certain of that she needed others to know too. “Just because you are not conscious does not mean you cannot hear,” she said. “So you should talk to your loved ones if you are in that situation. They hear you.”
