Terri Schiavo’s family encouraged after Kansas woman wakes from 20-year coma

Feb 13, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The awakening of a Kansas woman from a 20-year coma has encouraged Terri Schindler Schiavo’s family in their fight to keep their daughter alive.

Sarah Scantlin fell into a coma after being hit by a drunk driver 20 years ago, but she has begun to speak and remember her past. Her brain was injured so badly that doctors first feared she would spend her life in a vegetative state. But a week ago, Scantlin began speaking and doctors have no explanation.

Terri’s parents, brother and sister hope the Florida courts will consider what happened to Scantlin, as well as a new brainwave test, and think of Terri.

"In light of the miraculous awakening of Miss Sarah Scantlin in Kansas and the success of the new brainwave test reported in the New York Times this week, my daughter deserves to have this test before she is starved to death by judicial decree," said Terri’s father, Bob Schindler, in a written statement issued Feb. 11.

The New York Times article said this new brainwave test could “have consequences for legal cases in which parties dispute the mental state of an unresponsive patient.”

Video tape aired on CNN Headline News of Scantlin with her mother is extremely similar to footage of Terri and her mother, available on the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation Web site (www.terrisfight.org).

Terri’s parents plan to travel to Hutchinson, Kansas, to meet Sarah and her family.