Croatian
teenager wakes from coma speaking fluent German
A 13-year-old Croatian girl who fell
into a coma woke up speaking fluent German.
The girl, from the southern town of Knin,
had only just started studying German at school and had been reading German
books and watching German TV to become better, but was by no means fluent,
according to her parents.
Since waking up from her 24 hour coma however, she has been
unable to speak Croatian, but is able to communicate perfectly in German.
Doctors at
Hospital director Dujomir Marasovic said: "You never know when recovering from
such a trauma how the brain will react. Obviously we have some theories
although at the moment we are limited in what we can say because we have to
respect the privacy of the patient."
Psychiatric expert Dr Mijo Milas added: "In earlier times this would have been
referred to as a miracle, we prefer to think that there must be a logical
explanation its just that we haven't found it yet.
"There are references to cases where people who have
been seriously ill and perhaps in a coma have woken up being able to speak
other languages sometimes even the Biblical languages such as that spoken in
old Babylon or Egypt at the moment though any speculation would remain just
that speculation so it's better to continue tests until we actually know
something."
Published: 10:46PM BST
12 Apr 2010