The husband of a super-fit parkrun founder has described the terrifying moment his wife became “locked-in” her body following a massive bleed on her brain. Shocked Adam Green, 44, said his active wife Kate could only communicate by blinking after she suffered a brain haemorrhage that left her completely paralyzed.
The 42-year-old mum-of-one's ordeal began after she arrived home from the local swimming baths with her son Stanley, 7, and had complained of a bad headache. But just ten minutes later, Adam watched on in horror as Kate started frothing from the mouth and was unable to move or speak while lying curled up on her bed.
In the moments that followed, her stunned husband frantically called the emergency services while her distraught son jumped on Kate and cried out, “I love you, mummy”. And when she was admitted to a nearby hospital, doctors told Adam to call her family believing that Kate was unlikely to survive beyond the following day.
But miraculously, when they then turned off her ventilator, Kate opened her eyes and regained consciousness. Since then, she has baffled doctors and delighted her husband by getting back movement in different parts of her body – and has even managed to speak again.
Civil servant Adam said: “It’s been horrific and incredibly stressful. The first few weeks were just awful – lots of tears and just disbelief. But when she started flickering her fingers, it was like a miracle.
“People don’t tend to survive it, so the fact that she’s come out of this whole situation is remarkable. The doctors were saying: ‘We loved being proved wrong – this is remarkable!’”
Adam said Kate, a public health specialist in Rotherham Council had first complained of a headache just before 6pm on December 2 last year. He said: “It was just a normal Thursday night, taking our son Stanley to the local swim baths for a lesson.
"I greeted her at the door, and she said then: “Adam I feel really funny”. I said, “let’s go upstairs”, and I put her onto the bed, and she lay in the foetal position.
“But by 6:07, ten minutes after she got home, she couldn’t move, she’d lost the ability to speak, and she was frothing at the mouth.”
Adam phoned the ambulance service to let them know about Kate’s condition, and it wasn’t long before paramedics were rushing her to hospital to try and save her life. Doctors later told the devastated husband that Kate had got a pontine brain haemorrhage, and they couldn’t operate on her as the risks outweighed the benefits.
That night, they asked Adam to call her family, telling him to expect the worst when they switched off her ventilator the following day. Adam said: “They didn’t expect the outlook to be a good one, given the massive bleed that she encountered, and it’s quite rare that people do survive from such a thing.
However, incredibly, when medics finally shut off her life support system, Kate opened her eyes and regained consciousness. Over the following weeks, speech therapists tried to determine the extent of Kate's brain function – asking her to move her eyes if she knew what they were saying.
Adam explained: “She replied ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by looking up or down – she couldn’t look left or right. That’s the only function her entire body had. I kind of felt, well, her minds there, she just appears to be ‘locked in’.”
But the loving husband has since watched on in amazement as his wife - once at death’s door - has managed to move her limbs and even speak again. He said: “When she started flickering her fingers, it was like a miracle.
“If that had been the only thing that came back, it would have been alright. But then her toes started moving a bit.” He added: “Her left side came back quite quickly once she had that initial movement, and her left leg is really strong now.
“In the last four or five days, she’s just learnt to lift her arm above her head. And she can speak now. In the morning she’s quite clear – she’s getting better and better.
“I’m with her every single day for around ten hours a day, and I notice a difference every single morning when I get to her.”
Adam is now raising money to send Kate, who founded Rotherham Parkrun in 2013, to a specialist clinic where she can continue her incredible rehabilitation. He said: “We’re trying to raise some money to send her to a dedicate neurological rehabilitation facility where she’ll have a very structured routine.
“As a public health specialist at Rotherham council, she’s passionate about getting adults and kids out and about. She’s never content being sat down. So, this is killing her at the moment. She’s just eager to get well again.”
Despite her progress, Kate’s absence is taking a heart-breaking toll on her loved ones - and especially her son, Stanley. Adam said: “Stanley just wants his mum to come home now. He said: “If she could come home now, I would be happy.”
“He said he’s jealous of other kids because they’ve got their mummies.”
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