When medics turned off Kate Green’s ventilator as she lay in a coma her husband feared their seven-year-old son was about to lose his mother.
But as the machine was switched off Kate astounded everyone by taking a deep breath and opening her eyes.
It was the start of a path to recovery from a horrific pontine brain haemorrhage that no one thought possible.
Doctors told 42-year-old Kate’s husband Adam: “We loved being proved wrong – this is remarkable.”
Civil servant Adam, 44, said: “They didn’t expect the outlook to be a good one. Given the massive bleed, it’s quite rare that people survive.”
Although she faces a lengthy struggle to recover, Adam and their son Stanley can now hope that on day Kate will be back at home with them.
The family’s nightmare began on December 2 when Kate and Stanley returned from a trip to the swimming pool and she complained of a headache. Within minutes she was curled up on her bed in the fetal position, telling Adam: “I can’t move.”
Adam said: “Kate was murmuring and frothing at the mouth, that’s when Stanley got on the bed and said, ‘Mummy, I love you’.” She was taken to hospital and placed in an induced coma, her prospects of recovery so bleak she was not expected to survive until Christmas.
But from the moment she woke up gasping for air when the ventilator was turned off, Kate, has only needed about 25% of oxygen as she has been breathing for herself at three quarters her normal capacity.
A pontine stroke can be devastating, causing paralysis and locked-in syndrome, where patients are conscious, but unable to speak or move.
Adam said: “The worst case scenario when she was admitted was that she would die, but then it kind of shifted slightly to she might be in a vegetative state and be in a nursing home all her life.” But since she came out of the coma, Kate has shown amazing resilience in regaining movement.
Adam, of Rotherham, South Yorks, said: “When she started flickering her fingers, it was like a miracle. People don’t tend to survive it, so the fact she has come out of this whole situation is remarkable.”
As her mobility slowly returns and Adam has now raised £32,000 after setting a £30,000 target to pay for intensive rehabilitation for his wife.
It is thought a Public Health Specialist Kate’s fitness may have helped her amazing recovery.
She is a keen runner who set up the Rotherham park run. She hopes to return to volunteering there.
