(Newser)
– A teenager in the UK has had coronavirus twice, but he doesn’t know. Joseph Flavill has been in a coma since being hit by a car on March 1 while walking in Burton upon Trent, suffering a brain injury. That was three weeks before the first pandemic blockade. Now that he’s starting to get out of his coma, his family is struggling with how to tell him what happened to his accident. guard reports. “I just don’t know where to start with this,” his aunt said, adding, “I have no idea how Joseph will come to understand what we’ve all been through.” This includes two coronavirus seizures for the 19-year-old, trapped in a coma, from which he has recovered. His family members try to explain by phone that they want to be in his room, “holding his hand”, but they can’t because of the pandemic. Only his mother could visit, completely covered with protective equipment.
When he comes out of his coma completely in his room, his aunt says, “He’ll have no idea why he’s there.” The first sign of improvement came recently, when the teenager smiled when he played an audio recording made in the cockpit of an airplane. He then blinked a Zoom call when another relative mentioned a pasta, Cornish Pastry, on CNN. – Did you blink intentionally? she asked, and he blinked twice. Since then, he has moved his limbs and laughed at jokes. He has been moved from a hospital to a care center and will soon be able to receive a coronavirus vaccine. Among the events Flavill missed was receiving the Duke of Edinburgh’s Young People’s Award, an honor that was scheduled for Buckingham Palace in May. “When she gets out of this, life will not be the way she knows it at all,” his aunt said. – How do you describe her? (Read more stories about the coma.)