Here, you can find any of the interviews on this site.
In 2005, at the age of 17, Verity's son was involved in a near fatal car accident that caused him severe traumatic head injuries. After a long period of unconsciousness he eventually showed signs of awareness but his prognosis was not good. Nine years after the accident her son is still alive, living a life without dignity.
Verity is a mother of three sons who worked as a successful business-woman. She is now unemployed due to ill health.
Helen is 57, she had one daughter and twin sons. In 2006, her sixteen-year old twin-sons were involved in a car crash which left one, Christopher, in a coma. He was placed on a ventilator and underwent a craniotomy. Helen was told within days that he was very unlikely ever to recover. The consultant who operated on him commented: we threw everything at him, including the kitchen sink, maybe we shouldn't have.
In 2006, at the age of 16, Helen’s son, Christopher, was severely injured in a car accident. He was eventually diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state and died...
In 2008, at the age of 53, Gunars sister, A', had a brain haemorrhage and never regained consciousness. She was eventually diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state. In 2013 the Court of Protection declared that it was lawful and in A's best interests to have artificial nutrition and hydration withdrawn. She died later that year.
At the time of the injury Margaret was a long-term friend of Gunars and has since become his partner. Gunars (aged 61) was a senior local government manager and Margaret...
Jim's wife Amber was hospitalised with encephalitis at age 66 and despite treatment rapidly deteriorated and became unconscious. Having known two people who made good recoveries from brain injuries, Jim never gave up hope that Amber would recover, but was concerned that she might recover only to a quality of life that she would not consider worth living. He was relieved when she died some 5 to 6 months after being admitted to hospital, without apparently recovering consciousness.
Jim was a retired engineer involved in a range of community volunteer work and campaigns. Jim died in hospital just 4 months after this interview on 18 July 2013, after...
Morag's father had a brain haemorrhage on her 16th birthday, in 1991. This came completely out of the blue: he was 45, apparently fit and healthy and a serving police officer. He was then in a vegetative state, and later (probably) a minimally conscious state until he died of pneumonia nine years later.
Morag works in media.
David Menon explains how decisions are taken in intensive care when treating patients in a coma in the early days after their injury. He reflects on problems of uncertainty about outcome at this stage.
David Menon is Professor and Head of the Department of Anaesthesia, Principal Investigator in the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, and Co-Chair of the Acute Brain Injury Programme at the University...
Henry Marsh talks about issues to be considered when thinking about neurosurgery on severely injured patients
Professor Henry Marsh is a consultant neurosurgeon and author of Do No Harm: Tales of life, death and brain surgery.
Professor Lynne Turner-Stokes explains the conditions under which a patient can be determined to be in a permanent' vegetative state. She emphasises the need for skilled and repeat assessments.
Lynne Turner-Stokes is a consultant in rehabilitation medicine and Herbert Dunhill Medicine Professor of Rehabilitation, King’s College London. She chaired the Royal College of Physicians working party on prolonged disorders...
