During an interview, the woman’s son, Steven, said that when he arrived home, he reportedly found his 45-year-old mom, Lynde, lying unconscious on the floor. Steven then called 911 and EMS personnel took his mom to the hospital. The woman was unresponsive in the hospital and stayed in a coma for nearly 14 days. The whole family came to visit the unconscious woman, even though she was unable to say or do anything. During an interview, Lynde’s husband would whisper in her ear, imploring her to fight for her life. “I need you to be a fighter,” he would say. Unfortunately, the doctors were unable to get any signs that the woman was fighting for her life.
According to Lynde’s family, while the 45-year-old woman wasn’t technically brain dead, after a dozen days, it was time to face the probability that she wasn’t going to pull out of her coma. As a registered organ donor, the family decided to pull her off of life support and told the medical staff to get others lined up to receive transplants from their comatose loved one. As everyone said their final goodbyes and the plug was finally pulled, something dramatic happened. Completely unexpectedly, Lynde whispered 3 staggering words, “I am a fighter.”
Weeks later, the mother was back on her feet, hugging her family, and back in her home. “I don’t consider it a miracle but everybody else, that’s how they reference it,” Lynde told CBS News. Lynde also said that she could hear her family the whole time she was in the coma. “I remember everybody talking to me,” Lyndee explained in the CBS interview. “I remember when people came to visit, what conversations — I remember my niece reading to me.” She even remembers the doctors and family members discussing taking her off of life support. Although she was unable to speak or move, Lynde was desperately fighting, just as her husband had asked.
“Doctors told my family that I would start to make noises when they turned off life support. It was very agitating. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t respond. I could just hear everybody having conversations around me and about me,” Lynde said. “I remember a doctor opening my eyes, messing with me, and telling my family I was not reacting.” That’s when they finally pulled the plug. “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.’” Many of Lynde’s family members had already left the hospital when she was taken off life support. It wasn’t until the next day that her daughter, Amanda, returned to the hospital. “I looked at her, and she just says, ‘Hi,’ and I just fell to my knees,” Amanda remembered with a mix of joy and grief. “I told her, ‘I thought you had been gone for 12 hours.’” Lynde also encourages families to discuss, in detail, what end of life plans are like and what to do if a loved one is in a coma.