{"id":198392,"date":"2024-10-27T20:24:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T01:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/brain-dead-man-trapped-in-body-heard-debate-about-turning-off-his-life-support"},"modified":"2024-10-27T20:24:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T01:24:30","slug":"brain-dead-man-trapped-in-body-heard-debate-about-turning-off-his-life-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/brain-dead-man-trapped-in-body-heard-debate-about-turning-off-his-life-support","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Brain dead\u2019 man trapped in body heard debate about turning off his life support"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2017, Jacob Haendel was living a normal life as a head chef in\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

A paralysed<\/a> man who had an extreme form of locked-in syndrome and heard a nurse say he was \u201cbrain dead\u201d has become the first ever to recover after hearing medical professionals debating whether or not to switch off his life support.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Jacob Haendel was living a normal life as a head chef in Boston, Massachusetts<\/a> but in the space of a few weeks, his life was turned upside down after he was diagnosed with acute toxic progressive leukoencephalopathy<\/a>, which progressed into locked-in syndrome and forced his body would slowly shut down. An extreme form of locked-in syndrome is a condition where a patient is aware but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis and can be caused by brain trauma, infection or exposure to toxins.<\/p>\n

It is not known exactly how Jacob developed the condition, though he says his life as a chef consuming certain chemicals \u201cwilfully and otherwise\u201d may have been a factor. He ended up paralysed, unable to talk or blink within a few months and, could hear hospital staff<\/a> deliberating over switching off machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2017, Jacob Haendel was living a normal life as a head chef in\u2026 A paralysed man who had an extreme form of locked-in syndrome and heard a nurse say he was \u201cbrain dead\u201d has become the first ever to recover after hearing medical professionals debating whether or not to switch off his life support. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":701,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}