Dockery, a police officer in Walden, Tenn., was shot in the head by a drunken man while responding to a call on Sept. 17, 1988. He had lived ever since in a coma-like state in a nursing home. But after undergoing lung surgery in early 1996, Dockery suddenly awoke and began to talk nonstop. According to relatives, he was able to recall the names and middle names of several friends and relatives, the names of his horses and the color of his car. Doctors maintain that while he had lived in a vegetative state for some seven years, it was not technically a coma but closer to a "locked-in state" where a patient retains some consciousness but is unable to respond. One doctor described it as "wakefulness without consciousness," in which the person can blink and move the eyes and even comprehend spoken words. They were unable to explain his sudden return to the world, but the miracle did not last long; after 18 hours of verbosity, Dockery began to lapse back into unresponsiveness. He died the following April.
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