A comatose mother-of-two who was staring death in the face has revealed the three words that gave her already-grieving husband hope that she would live.
Doctors had turned off the life support machine of Lyndee Brown Pellettiere-Swapp, 47, after fearing she wouldn’t come out of the coma she’d been in for 12 days.
However, Pellettiere-Swapp, who is from Arizona, had other ideas. Shortly after her life support was turned off, she uttered the words ‘I’m a fighter’ at her husband.
Miracle: Lyndee Brown Pellettiere-Swapp, 47, was in a coma but woke up and spoke to her husband after life support was pulled
About two weeks before, Pellettiere-Swapp had been found unconscious by her husband and was rushed to the hospital, where she suffered seizures and was mostly unconscious.
Doctors had said that there was ‘no response’ from Pellettiere-Swapp, determining that she’d never come out of her coma and there was nothing else they could do for her.
But Pellettiere-Swapp wasn’t brain-dead. Though she couldn’t move or speak, she was sometimes aware of some of what was going on around her — a phenomenon known as being ‘locked in’.
Doctors and nurses had no idea that Pellettiere-Swapp was conscious and could could hear them talking to her family about her condition.
‘I remember people talking to me,’ she told CBS5. ‘I remember when people came to visit, my niece reading to me.’
Nightmare: She spent 12 days in a coma, and while she had seizures for the first few days, she was soon ‘locked in’ and aware of visitors, like her children
She added to Mirror Online: ‘I remember a doctor shining a light in my eyes and telling my family that there is no response. I also remember the doctor explaining what is going to happen when they turned the life support off. ‘
With her organs failing, doctors removed the vital tubes keeping her alive. Pellettiere-Swapp is an organ donor, so her family made the decision to help save some of those organs.
‘They gave one more day for everyone to come and say their goodbyes. On October 29, they turned my life support off. The entire time my husband kept whispering in my ear “I need you to fight,”‘ she said.
An organ team was on standby and the doctor was waiting for her to pass when something changed. Pellettiere-Swapp started trying desperately to get their attention.
‘In my head it was very clear what I was saying, but it wasn’t to them. I was finally able to get out “I’m a fighter,” which is what my husband was whispering in my ear,’ she told CBS5.
Wow! When doctors pulled life support and her organs were failing, the Arizona resident (left) managed to tell her husband she was a fighter, and she began to work toward recovering
Pellettiere-Swapp has taken a while recovering. She had to learn to walk and feed herself again, and she has been hospitalized seven more times since leaving the first time in November of 2015.
She’s had four surgeries due to complications, including having blood clots removed. She also suffers from anxiety, panic attacks, and PTSD.
But her husband and two children are beyond thrilled that she woke up.
‘I don’t consider it a miracle but everybody else, that’s how they reference it,’ she said
After her own experience being locked in, she also wants to remind others to be patient and not lose hope that their loved ones are lost just because they’re irresponsible.
‘Just because you are not conscious does not mean you cannot hear,’ she said. ‘So you should talk to your loved ones if you are in that situation. They hear you.’