[Vision2020] Democracy Stuns Polish Coma Man

[Tom Hansen]

>From CNN at www.cnn.com -

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Democracy stuns Polish coma man

WARSAW, Poland (Reuters) -- A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma
following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years
later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on
Saturday.

Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three
years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda
with his revival.

"It was Gertruda that saved me, and I'll never forget it," Grzebski told
news channel TVN24.

"For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care
team, changing her comatose husband's position every hour to prevent
bed-sore infections," Super Express reported Dr Boguslaw Poniatowski as
saying.

"When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat
was rationed and huge petrol lines were everywhere," Grzebski told TVN24,
describing his recollections of the communist system's economic collapse.

"Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many
goods in the shops it makes my head spin."

Grzebski awoke to find his four children had all married and produced 11
grandchildren during his years in hospital.

He said he vaguely recalled the family gatherings he was taken to while in a
coma and his wife and children trying to communicate with him.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)