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Mother wakes after spending almost 30 years in vegetative state

A mother has regained full consciousness after she spent almost three decades in a vegetative state with a severe brain injury. [Photo: Getty]
A mother has regained full consciousness after she spent almost three decades in a vegetative state with a severe brain injury. [Photo: Getty]

A mother has regained full consciousness after she spent almost three decades in a vegetative state with a severe brain injury.

Munira Abdulla was just 32 when a school bus slammed into her car in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in 1991.

The woman, who was driving with her four-year-old son Omar, threw her arms around the boy to shield him, and he survived with only minor injuries.

At the time of the crash, doctors declared Ms Abdulla to be in a minimally conscious state; similar to a coma but receptive to pain, The Independent reported.

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She was fed through a tube and provided with physiotherapy to stop her muscles deteriorating, but reportedly showed no signs of responsiveness for more than 15 years.

In 2017 the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, reportedly offered to pay for the woman to receive specialist treatment in Germany.

That’s when her condition made a drastic improvement, according to the UAE-based newspaper The National.

There, she received physical therapies and drugs to improve her responsiveness and sleeping patterns.

“She was making strange sounds and I kept calling the doctors to examine her, they said everything was normal,” her son Omar Webair told the newspaper.

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“Then three days later I woke up to the sound of someone calling my name. It was her.

“She was calling my name, I was flying with joy; for years I have dreamt of this moment, and my name was the first word she said.”

Since the breakthrough, Ms Abdulla is now able to hold a conversation, recite prayers and communicate when she is in pain.

She has now returned to Abu Dhabi with her family, where she continues to receive treatment.