13. “In fifth grade, I fell out of a tree and bonked my head pretty well. I woke up three days later in the hospital. I have very vague memories while in the coma of hearing my dad reading a book, my mom telling me that she knew I would pull through, and of a tube in my nose. But these were always super fuzzy moments, and I never was conscious during them. It was like a half-second of being aware of one particular thing — the way the tube felt being taped against my arm and wishing I could reach out and move it — and then back into the nothingness.”
“When I fell, I blacked out before I hit the ground…or at least that is where memory fades. And ‘fades’ is really the best word. It was as if my consciousness was drained away and then blackness and nothingness. It was as if my body knew how bad it was going to hurt and so it shut down.
Waking up was sudden. So, so sudden. I was in blackness. I had a moment of awareness, like ‘my neck hurts,’ and then the pain was magnitudes higher. Waking up was the most painful moment of my life, and I just started crying and then couldn’t even cry it hurt so bad. I think that had more to do with injuries sustained to my neck and head than the coma, but that is what it was like. After an hour, my body was used to the pain and I was totally normal, albeit very weak, hungry, and thirsty.” —u/RagnarLothbrook
