To wake her son, who had fallen into a coma following a car accident, the 50-year-old mother persevered by his bedside for 23 months. The moment he finally called out “Mom,” she felt that all her efforts over more than a year had been worth it. In January 2022, at Nanjing Zijin Hospital, Ms. Chen, who had managed to awaken her comatose son, shared her story with a reporter from the Yangtze Evening News, hoping to tell other family members of patients like herself: with persistence, miracles can happen.

With his mother’s meticulous care, her son, who had been in a vegetative state, has regained consciousness. Photo by Pei Rui.


She bears the weight of the entire world, all so her son can wake up.

On August 19, 2019, Ms. Chen received news that her son, who was studying in Nanjing, had been involved in a car accident. By the time she hurried from her hometown in Huai’an to the hospital, her 16-year-old son was still undergoing emergency surgery. From the operating room to the intensive care unit, although his life was saved, the severity of his injuries—particularly the damage to his brain—left him in a vegetative state, having been pulled back from the brink of death by the doctors.

“From that moment on, I went everywhere asking around and searched online to find out what a vegetative state is and how one might regain consciousness,” Ms. Chen told a reporter from the Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News. “My son was lucky—he was pulled back from the brink of death—but unfortunately, even the doctors don’t know when he’ll wake up.”

With his mother’s meticulous care, her son, who had been in a vegetative state, has regained consciousness. Photo by Pei Rui.

 

After her son’s condition stabilized, she placed her hopes on Nanjing Zijin Hospital. She said she had read news reports online about cases at the hospital in which patients in a vegetative state had regained consciousness. On September 26, 2019, Ms. Chen’s son, Xiao Wang, was admitted to Zijin Hospital. From the day the doctors declared her son to be in a vegetative state, she set herself a goal: three years. No matter how arduous or difficult it might be, she vowed to persevere steadfastly for three years, using three years of maternal love to awaken her son.

Under the call of maternal love, the son who had been “asleep” for 17 months regained consciousness.

Since being admitted to Nanjing Zijin Hospital on September 26, 2019, Ms. Chen has devoted herself wholeheartedly to caring for her son. At first, she scoured the internet for numerous methods purported to help a vegetative‑state patient regain consciousness, carefully compiling them and presenting them to the hospital’s doctors for evaluation. She explained that she tried every approach she could find online, including several techniques the doctors had recommended. Each day, aside from meals, sleep, and tending to her son, whenever she had a moment, she would lean over his bedside and call his name—repeating it again and again. When she grew tired, she would take a short break, then resume, continuing for several hours at a time.

Even though Ms. Chen had hoarsely shouted herself hoarse, her son still showed little response during the first few months. Faced with her child who seemed like a wooden statue, she kept repeating to herself, “You have to persevere! You have to persevere!” Ms. Chen also has an older daughter, who has been playing with her younger brother ever since he was very little, and the two siblings share an exceptionally close bond. Before the car accident, her daughter worked in Huai’an. After her brother’s accident, in order to care for him more conveniently, she resolutely quit her job there and came to Nanjing to look for work. When she wasn’t by his bedside, she would have Ms. Chen use her phone to video‑call her brother every day, chatting with him and reminiscing about their childhood together.

At the call of maternal love and under her mother’s meticulous care, on January 19, 2021, Ms. Chen’s son began to show faint signs of consciousness after 17 months in a coma caused by a car accident. In medical terms, patients with traumatic brain injury who remain without any perceptual awareness for more than a year are generally considered unlikely to recover; thus, the awakening of someone who has been in a vegetative state for over a year is often hailed as a medical miracle. Ms. Chen told a reporter from Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News that at the time, she was softly calling her son’s name by his ear when the miracle truly unfolded: she saw his lips move ever so slightly, and tears immediately burst forth like a floodgate breaking, filling her eyes. She felt that all her efforts over the past year and more had been worth it.

I want to share my personal experience with those who’ve been through the same thing: don’t give up.

A miracle has happened once again! On July 3, 2021, under Ms. Chen’s devoted care, her son, Xiao Wang, uttered his first word—“Mom”—after being involved in a car accident. From the moment he fell into a coma following the crash on August 19, 2019, to the onset of minimal consciousness on January 19, 2021, and finally to the point where he could call out “Mom,” over these 23 months, Ms. Chen’s extraordinary maternal love helped awaken her son from a vegetative state. Speaking to a reporter, she said her son was born in November 2004 and has not yet turned 18 this year. Before the accident, he had a rather rebellious temperament, often ignoring his parents’ advice. But since regaining consciousness, he seems like a completely different person, deeply dependent on his older sister—and on her as well.

With his mother’s meticulous care, her son, who had been in a vegetative state, has regained consciousness. Photo by Pei Rui.

 

Pan Xingming, deputy director of the ward at Nanjing Zijin Hospital, told a reporter from Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News that, in clinical practice, various physical stimuli—such as sound, light, and electromagnetic fields—are commonly used to help patients in a vegetative state regain consciousness. Cases like Ms. Chen’s, in which a patient exhibits even minimal awareness after 17 months in a vegetative state, are truly rare. It must be said that the power of maternal love is immense. Moving forward, the patient will need to undergo further functional rehabilitation to achieve normal eating and interpersonal communication.

Ms. Chen also said that her son is fortunate, and that she would gladly make any sacrifice as a mother. She hopes to share her perseverance with fellow patients in the ward and with other family members who have faced similar challenges, urging everyone to keep going together—persevere for love!