59-year-old Munira Abdulla of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been in a coma for almost thirty years before waking up to the joy of her family.
Munira Abdulla was injured in an accident in 1991 after which she went into a coma at age 32. She was in a car driven by her brother-in-law after she had picked up her son from school.
According to a report, during the short journey, the car she was travelling in collided with a bus. Her son, Omar Webair, who was then just four-years-old, was sitting in the back of the vehicle with his mother but he was unscathed because his mother cradled him in her arms moments before the accident.
In an interview with UAE-based newspaper, The National, Webair revealed the details about the accident and his mother’s progress following years of treatment.
Webair was quoted as saying: “I never gave up on her because I always had a feeling that one day she would wake up.”
He added: “The reason I shared her story is to tell people not to lose hope on their loved ones; don’t consider them dead when they are in such a state.
“My mother was sitting with me in the back seat. When she saw the crash coming, she hugged me to protect me from the blow.”
She was eventually taken to hospital and later transferred to London. There, she was declared to be in a vegetative state but sensitive to pain.
Abdulla was then returned to Al-Ain, a city in the UAE on the border with Oman where she lived, and moved to various medical facilities according to insurance requirements.
She remained there for a few years, fed through a tube and kept alive. She underwent physiotherapy to ensure her muscles would not weaken through lack of movement.
In 2017, the family was offered a grant by the Crown Prince Court, a government body in Abu Dhabi, for Abdulla to be transferred to Germany.
There, she underwent a number of surgeries to correct her severely shortened arm and leg muscles, and she was given medication to improve her state, including her wakefulness.
Munira Abdulla is now up and her family is grateful for that.