LOOKING BACK : The People...

Socorro Lopez believes in miracles.

She says she has seen a few since her return to Mexico with her son, Roberto Hernandez--the victim of a car crash in Corona that left him in a “vegetative state”--last summer (View, Aug. 25).

“Roberto can comb his hair with his left hand,” Lopez, 51, says over the phone from her home in Purisima de Bustos, in central Mexico. “I give him apple juice in a glass and he can hold it and drink it by himself. He says hello by wiggling his fingers.

“For me, because I am a mother, these are little miracles.”

Her son immigrated to California two years ago to work and send money to his parents and five siblings. But last January, he was a passenger in a car that was broadsided by a drunk driver. Roberto, 18, suffered extensive damage to his brain stem. The accident left him totally dependent on others. He is unable to speak or walk and is confined to a wheelchair and his bed. A tube is inserted into his stomach for the baby formula-like meals fed to him four times daily.

A room in his family’s home is filled with medical supplies and equipment purchased with donations sent to a fund started by Loma Linda University Medical Center, where Roberto had been treated for several months after his accident. More than $12,000 was raised after Roberto’s plight was made public.

“Since we’ve been back, we bought Roberto a used hospital bed,” Lopez says. And for the most part, except for a flu virus in October, Roberto has been well.

“I see my son getting better,” Lopez adds. “He gets very happy at the sound of my voice and of his brothers’ and sisters’ voices. He even tries to laugh. I tell him, ‘Mijo (my son), I want you to laugh.’ ”

She says taking care of Roberto around the clock leaves her with little time for much else, especially sleep.

“My schedule is Roberto’s schedule. I sleep when he sleeps,” she says. “But I have to manage the best I can. This whole experience has made me a stronger woman.”