7 1/2 Years Later, Officer Awakens, Has Surgery

A former police officer who emerged from a 7 1/2-year coma-like state and started talking as if nothing had happened underwent lung surgery Thursday that could save his life but plunge him back into unconsciousness.

Gary Dockery, who amazed his family with his abrupt return to consciousness on Monday, had infectious fluid drained from his lungs. The fluid was caused by chronic pneumonia.

The family’s decision to proceed with the surgery was difficult. Doctors warned that the pneumonia would kill Dockery unless he underwent the operation but that he might never fully regain consciousness after the anesthesia.

Dockery’s brother, Dennis, said the family had been prepared to let Dockery die of pneumonia because it was preferable to the vegetative state, until he regained consciousness Monday and went on an 18-hour talking spree.

“Of course, when you’ve got somebody talking to you [after 7 1/2 years], you don’t want to let go of them,” Dennis Dockery said at a news conference Thursday.

After the operation, Dr. James Folkening said: “He opened his eyes and seems to be responsive, but of course we can’t assess his ability to verbally communicate with us at this time” because he has a tube down his throat.

Doctors said Dockery’s vital signs were stable and he was breathing on his own though he would remain attached to a ventilator through the night as a precaution. X-rays showed the lung condition was improved by the operation.

“He’s able to squeeze his hand on command. He’s still on the ventilator. I understand they are in the weaning process, trying to get him off the ventilator,” said Rebecca Flynn, a spokeswoman at the Parkridge Medical Center in Chattanooga.

Doctors are optimistic they will be able to take him off the ventilator today, Flynn said.

Dockery, now 42, was shot in the forehead Sept. 7, 1988, after answering a prank trouble call in Walden, Tenn., a mountain town 15 miles northeast of Chattanooga where he worked as a police officer.

The shooter, Samuel Frank Downey, told officers he made the bogus call to get back at police for reprimanding him about making noise. Downey, 68, was sentenced to 37 years in prison and will be eligible for parole in 1998.

For 7 1/2 years, Dockery did little more than blink, grimace or groan. His family was never sure how much he really understood.

Last week, seriously ill with a 104-degree fever and pneumonia, Dockery was transferred from a nursing home to Parkridge. Fluid was removed from his lungs, and within 24 hours of receiving antibiotics intravenously, his fever broke and he began talking to his sister.

He remembered neither the shooting nor taking the Walden police job just three months before. He did recall his divorce and his past jobs and recognized his sons, who were 5 and 12 when he was shot.

He spent Monday talking with friends and relatives, who were quickly called to his bedside. Dockery spoke less on Tuesday and not at all Wednesday.

Dockery’s family has said he was in a coma all those years. But doctors were skeptical that Dockery was truly in what laymen would consider a coma.

A coma is a short-term state in which a patient is unconscious with his eyes closed. After two to four weeks, if the patient doesn’t die or recover, his eyes open but he is still unconscious; doctors call this a vegetative state.

Parkridge officials wouldn’t say whether Dockery was in a coma, nor would officials at the Alexian Village nursing home in suburban Chattanooga where Dockery lived.

Dr. Stuart Yablon, co-director of the brain injury unit of the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research in Houston, said it sounded as though Dockery was in a vegetative state before he regained consciousness.

“It’s still extraordinary, though, no matter if he was in a coma or a vegetative state,” Yablon said. “If I was a family member, I would probably characterize it as miraculous.”

Experts have theorized that some drugs may inhibit certain functions of the nervous system and can block the effects of the vegetative state.