(Newser)
– A teenager in the UK has had coronavirus twice, but he doesn’t know it. Joseph Flavill has been in a coma since being hit by a car on March 1 while walking through the city of Burton upon Trent, suffering a traumatic brain injury. This happened three weeks before the nation’s first pandemic blockade. Now that he is starting to come out of his coma, his family is struggling to figure out how to tell him what happened since his accident, the Guardian reports. “I don’t know where to start,” her aunt said, adding, “I have no idea how Joseph will come to understand what we’ve all been through.” This includes two coronavirus attacks for a 19-year-old man, trapped while in a coma, from whom he has recovered. Family members try to tell him over the phone that they want to be in his room, “holding hands,” but it can’t be because of the pandemic. Only her mother has been able to visit, completely covered with protective gear.
When she comes out of her coma completely in her room, her aunt says, “She’ll have no idea why she’s there.” The first sign of improvement came recently when the teenager smiled as he played an audio recording made in the cockpit of an airplane. He then blinked at a Zoom call when another family member mentioned a pastry shop, the Cornish Patisserie, on CNN. “Did you blink on purpose?” she asked, and he blinked twice. Since then, he has moved his limbs and laughed at jokes. He has been transferred 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 Youth Achievement Award, an honor that was scheduled at Buckingham Palace last May. “When you get out of this, life won’t be the way you know it,” her aunt said. “How do you describe it?” (Read more coma stories.)