The unconscious state (UK, Kuwait)

Just heard a BBC World Service programme about some serious Covid patients (and their doctors, nurses, and chaplain) up in Leeds, Yorkshire, northern England.

The doctor interviewed said they still spoke to the comatose patients as if they could hear.  One of the family members would even read out recipes for want of something to say, just so that the patient could hear their voice.

I have heard quite a few stories about people who are in an unconscious state being able to hear.

A football-mad boy started to respond when the family played him some football match commentary.

When Michael Rosen* caught Covid and was in a 40-day induced coma, one of the nurses one day mentioned the name of the football team that was the main local rival of the team Rosen supports.  The nurse reported Rosen rolling over in his bed and keeping his back to her (presumably in disgust or protest).

When I was interpreting in Kuwait in May 1986, the six of us interpreters had come back to our hotel from a half day’s tour of Kuwait City, and were walking up the main staircase when one of the team twisted her ankle on the stairs.  So sharp was the pain that she fainted.

She was carried up the rest of the stairs and placed on one of the sofas in the foyer.  I knelt down beside her, held her hand, stroked it and said soothingly, “It’s all right, Mary [not her real name], it’s all right, everything’s all right, everything’s all right, don’t worry, don’t worry.”  She opened her eyes at that point.

Later, when she got back from the hospital, she told me that when she was in the unconscious state, she felt she was falling down a very long and dark shaft.  She said she felt quite frightened as she was falling down, down, down.  Then she heard a voice saying, “It’s all right, Mary, it’s all right, everything’s all right, everything’s all right, don’t worry, don’t worry.”  She suddenly thought, “I know that voice!  It’s xx!!” and immediately calmed down.  That was when she then woke up, to find me holding her hand, stroking it, and soothing her with those words.

*Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is a British children's author and poet who has written 140 books. He served as Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009, and has also been a TV presenter and political columnist.