‘Miracle drugs’ allow man with brain damage to speak

A BRAIN-DAMAGED firefighter who started speaking after almost a decade of near-total silence has had moments of clarity, but nothing as dramatic as that first long conversation on Saturday, his wife said.

Don Herbert’s startling improvement came three months after his medication was changed.

Mr Herbert, who will be 44 on Saturday, went without oxygen for several minutes after being trapped under a collapsed roof while fighting a house fire in Buffalo, New York, in December 1995. He spent two and a half months in a coma, was blind and had little, if any, memory.