Reader's Digest is a global magazine and I'm hopeful that many of you either subscribe to this magazine or have access to it.

In the "Book Bonus" section, there is an article titled "Man Down!" It's about a firefighter, Donny Herbert (34), who lapsed into a 10 year coma beginning in April 1995. In early 2005, his wife noticed that he seemed to be crying which doctors took as a positive sign.

He was still in there "somewhere". His heart beat. His blood pumped. His lungs completed their life-giving tasks. His brain, though, was the question.

His wife found a new doctor on her own, Dr. Jamil Ahmed. He apparently had a few remarkable examples from which to draw a little hope. Some of his patients with traumatic brain injuries had come back from oblivion.

His thinking was that the right combination of neurostimulants might spark the brain into ignition and restore activity where only emptiness and stupor had reigned. An early drug cocktail included one part antidepressant and a dash of a drug commonly used to tread ADHD. Donny hadn't shown much change, so eventually Dr. Ahmed worked in a drug used to treat Parkinson's, plus metabolic activity-inducing vitamins like B12 and folic acid.

On April 30th, her husband woke up. The jest of it was that he was completely lucid , talking to his sons (who were now 10 years older!) for 16 hours of nonstop talking. On May 2, he stirred again, talking a bit more, but not nearly as much. He WAS talking and following commands so his wife was going to put him back in rehab.

Just prior to moving him, however, he fell in his room and hit his head. He was rushed to the hospital with a gash requiring stitches. CT scans showed bleeding on the brain. His progress, which had already slowed, declined further. He spoke less frequently but was still visibly fighting. He never gave up but by the end of the summer of 2005, he slipped away again, and in late February 2005, he came down with pneumonia, spiking a fever of 105 degrees and died a short time later at the age of 44."

I'm not sure what this has to do with Parkinson's but I was intrigued. At the end of the article, there is a notation that to buy a copy of "The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up", go to rd.com/firefighter.

My main question is if anyone has heard of this doctor and/or if they think that this could possibly have a connection with PD.



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