Conscious man diagnosed in coma for years

LIEGE, Belgium, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- A Belgian man misdiagnosed as being in a coma says he could hear and see doctors, friends and family who visited him for 23 years.

Rom Houbens, now 46, was misdiagnosed in 1983 after a car crash, with medical personnel deeming his consciousness extinct, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

Houbens was thought to be in a vegetative state until three years ago when neurologist Steven Laureys led a re-examination and determined Houbens was paralyzed, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

High-tech scans showed Houbens' brain still functioned almost normally and subsequent therapy today enables him to tap out messages on a computer screen.

"I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me -- it was my second birth. All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life," Houbens wrote for a recent report to the Coma Science Group and Department of Neurology at Liege University Hospital.