A few weeks ago you would have read the story of Rip Van Winkle who slept for 21 years. That was fiction, a made-up story. This is a similar story but it is true. I picked up the story from a foreign newspaper.

Patsy was living with her husband and three children in Alberkerk, in the state of Mexico in the USA. She had difficulty in giving birth to her fourth child, so the doctors had to do an operation to take the baby boy out. This is called a caesarian operation.

Due to some mishap during the operation or due to Patsy's own misfortune, a blood clot got into her lung and her heart stopped beating.

Doctors did the needful immediately and her heart started beating again and she started breathing. But, she did not regain consciousness. She did not move her hands or legs, nor did she open her eyes. Except for her breathing, there was no other sign that she was alive.

The hospital is legally bound to look after a patient as long as there is life in her/him.

Patsy lay on her bed, stiff and still, like a corpse, not for a day or two, a week or a month. She lay in the same position for 16 years. She was fed through tubes.

After some years her husband Mark Bull divorced her; but he told the hospital, "if she ever recovers tell her I am living here." But he had no hopes of her ever recovering.

For 16 years Patsy lay there like a log. Then on Christmas Eve when the nurse was pulling her bedsheet to straighten it, Patsy said, "Don't do that."

The nurse let go off the bedsheet and stared at her flabbergasted. She could not believe her ears. She informed the doctor immediately.

"I did not think she would ever regain consciousness," said her doctor, Elliot Marks. "I have never seen or heard of a case like this; nor have I read in a book. I cannot say how or why she has regained consciousness so suddenly."

Patsy who had for 16 years lived on liquid food sent through tubes to her stomach, ate a piece of pizza that day. That was the first time in all those 16 years that she took some food through her mouth. The nurse next fed her a small piece of chicken with mashed potato.

As soon as this unbelievable news reached the family, Patsy's four children, their father and Patsy's sister, rushed to the hospital. Her eldest daughter Sindy was now 26. "I hugged my mother and she hugged me", said Sindy her heart overflowing with joy.

"It will take some time for her to get back to normal," doctors told the family.

"She will have to do exercises to get her limbs into action and she will also have to get used to speaking." That was the doctor's advice before Patsy left hospital after 16 years.

Compiled by Sumana Saparamadu