(Newser)
– A teenager in the UK has had the coronavirus twice, but he doesn’t know it. Joseph Flavill has been in a coma since he was hit by a car on March 1, while walking through the city of Burton upon Trent, suffering a traumatic brain injury. That was three weeks before the country’s first pandemic blockade. Now that he’s starting to come out of his coma, his family is struggling to know how to tell him what happened since his accident, Guardian reports. “I just don’t know where to start,” said his aunt, adding, “I have no idea how Joseph is going to understand what we’ve all been through.” This includes two episodes of coronavirus for the 19-year-old, contracted during the coma, from which he recovered. Family members try to explain over the phone that they want to be in their room, “holding their hands”, but cannot because of the pandemic. Only his mother was able to visit him, completely covered with protective equipment.
When he comes out of the coma completely in his room, his aunt says, “he won’t have a clue why he’s there.” The first sign of improvement came recently, when the teenager smiled at an audio recording made in an airplane cabin. Then he winked at a call from Zoom when another relative mentioned a pastry, Cornish candy, by CNN. “Did you blink on purpose?” she asked, and he blinked twice. Since then, he moved his limbs and laughed at the jokes. He was transferred from a hospital to a health center and will soon be able to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus. Among the events that Flavill missed was the receipt of the Duke of Edinburgh award, a tribute that was scheduled for Buckingham Palace last May. “When he gets out of this, life will not be as he knows it,” said his aunt. “How do you describe that?” (Read more coma stories.)