18-Hour Miracle Abates for Brain-Damaged Policeman

Gary Dockery’s family measures his progress in small wonders now, not the kind of miracle that ended 7 1/2 years of silence for the brain-damaged police officer.

Nearly a year ago, Dockery, 43, emerged from a coma-like state and started talking--for 18 hours.

He described his green Jeep. He rattled off the names of his horses. He recognized old friends. He recalled camping trips. He told his two sons, now ages 20 and 12, how much he loved them.

It was the first time he had spoken since 1988, when a drunken man’s bullet pierced his brain and plunged him into a motionless, mute world.

He hasn’t conversed like that since, but his doctor and family say he is more alert and responsive than before that unexplainable day.

“He is much more consistently alert. He follows a person with his gaze. He responds to instruction,” said Dockery’s longtime doctor, James Folkening. “I don’t know if that translates into a higher thought process, but that’s what remained.”

Doctors have since conducted brain tests and experimented with various drug combinations to reproduce or understand why Dockery started talking, but the results were inconclusive, Folkening said.

The catalyst appeared to be the life-threatening pneumonia he developed last February. His family believes he overheard them in his hospital room discussing whether to allow his illness to run its course or risk surgery.

He started talking four hours later, which convinced them he should have the surgery and another chance for life.

Although the talking abated, it hasn’t stopped. He has responded to speech therapy--occasionally speaking short phrases, answering yes or no questions, and reading letters and numbers. It’s unknown how well he will communicate in the future, Folkening said.

After the shooting, if Dockery communicated at all, it was by blinking or squeezing a hand in response to a question. In later years, he did nothing.

Folkening said Dockery probably never lost the ability to speak, but it was suppressed for some reason. He said it could be Dockery wants to speak but, because of the brain damage, can’t always motivate himself to do it.

Dockery’s latest milestone is learning to operate a motorized wheelchair, which he got the week before Christmas. He moves the wheelchair by listening to a nurse’s command and pushing a lever. He doesn’t initiate movement by himself yet, but that is the hope.

“He will never be completely independent, but we hope that he eventually will be able to take himself up and down the hallway,” Folkening said.

Dockery must remain in a nursing home on Signal Mountain, about 10 miles northeast of Chattanooga, because he needs constant care. He cannot chew or swallow, so he is fed through a stomach tube, and he is paralyzed fully on his right side and partially on his left.

To prevent Dockery from slipping into a fog again, he is taken to areas of the nursing home where there are other patients, such as the cafeteria, Alexian Village spokeswoman Susan Showalter said.

Also, his family visits him often and his mother, Corene Thompson, reads him the dozens of cards and letters that arrive weekly from well-wishers.

His story has inspired hope, Thompson said. A letter from a man in Arizona told how he had given up on his son, but began working with him after hearing about Dockery. The boy eventually opened his eyes.

“That’s not false hope,” Thompson. “That’s giving someone the faith to go on.”