Woman Wakes Up from A 48-Year Long Coma After Receiving A Kiss from Her High School Lover

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Houston| A 69-year woman who had spent the last 48 years in a coma, at the St. Joseph Medical Center, has miraculously emerged from her state of unconsciousness after receiving a kiss from her former boyfriend.

Dolores Franklin spent the last 48 years of her life as an unidentified patient at the medical center. She was stuck in a vegetative coma after suffering from a severe traumatic brain injury during a violent car accident, in January 1967. She was a passenger in an acquaintance’s car, 1200 miles from home and was not carrying IDs, so the medical staff was unable to identify her for decades.

Dr. Philip Emery, who has been following her case for years, had almost lost all hope of recovery, but the woman suddenly regained consciousness on Sunday, during a visit from her long-lost lover.

Dr. Emery and his team decided, after finally learning Ms. Franklin’s identity in March, to experiment with various techniques of “Process Oriented Coma Work”, an approach aiming to work with the residual consciousness present in comatose patients. Hoping to arouse an emotional reaction in their patient, they asked her high school boyfriend, 70-year old widow, Ronald Morris, to come and visit her at the hospital.

The doctors of the St-Joseph Medical Center were astonished to see Ms. Franklin regain consciousness, saying it was “nothing short of a miracle” that the woman seems to have suffered no brain damage at all.

Mr. Morris and Ms. Franklin were in love as teenagers, growing up in the small town of Waynesboro, Georgia. They even got engaged in January 1966, but never had the chance to get married as the poor man was drafted to serve in the Vietnam war and departed in November. Ronald Morris served in Vietnam until September 1969, when he was severely injured by fragments of a mortar shell He spent the next two years of his life in a military rehabilitation center, where he recovered from his injuries.

“These were horrible years”

recalls Mr. Morris.
“All I wanted was to get married, but I had to go fight a horrible war at the other end of the world… It was like hell. The only thing that kept me alive was the thought that if I survived and came home, I could be together with my Dolores.”

During this time, however, a terrible event occurred that would separate the lovers for more than 40 years. Two months after her lover left for Vietnam, Ms. Franklin had a terrible car accident which almost killed her and left her in a deep vegetative coma. She would spend the next decades of her life as an unidentified patient at the St-Josepn Medical Center.

Devoted to to finding out what had happened to his beloved, Mr. Morris dedicated the next 43 years of his life looking for her. He also spent more than 20,000 hours building a magnificent flower garden, in memory of “his soul mate”.

The magnificent flower garden spreads on a total of seven acres, near their hometown of Waynesboro, Georgia, and is described as one of the most beautiful in the country.

His efforts finally paid off, in March, as the doctors from the St-Joseph Medical Center were able to identify Ms. Franklin thanks to the samples of her sister’s DNA that he had sent all over the country. He was overjoyed when they called him to say that Ms. Franklin was still alive, and asked him to visit his long-lost lover.

“I could hardly believe it was true,”

says Mr. Morris.”
I had waited 40 years for that moment, and suddenly, all my prayers had been answered. My Dolores was still alive! I jumped on the first plane to Texas and rushed to the hospital. She was lying there, motionless, as beautiful as she was the last time I had seen her. I could not restrain myself, so I kissed her… and she woke up! It was just incredible.”

Ms. Franklin seems to have regained all of her memories and mental abilities, but will still have to remain in the hospital for at least a few months. Her muscles have atrophied a lot during her years in the coma, diminishing considerably her physical autonomy. This doesn’t seem to discourage the lovers, however, who seem extremely happy to be reunited and are looking forward to spending as much time together as possible.