Rueben Nsemoh, a 16-year-old teen from Georgia spoke spanish fluently for the very first time after he woke up from a coma caused by a grave head injury. Rueben was playing soccer with his friends when the life-threatening accident transpired.
During a game on September 24, as Rueben dove after a loose ball, another player accidentally kicked him in the head. Due to the incident, Rueben suffered from a concussion and was then brought to the hospital.
Doctors and Rueben’s family were all baffled when he started speaking Spanish in full sentences after he woke up from a three-day coma. According to them, he only knew a few words pre-coma.
“It started flowing out,” he told Time in an interview.
“I felt like it was second nature for me. I wasn’t speaking my English right, and every time I tried to speak it I would have a seizure.”
Rueben was treated in the Intensive Care Unit for days before he started stirring little by little. He was gesturing for food when he all of a sudden said “Tengo hambre” which meant “I am hungry.”
“I was very shocked. That’s something he’s never done before. When he got up and he started speaking Spanish, I was confused,” Nsemoh, his mother, said.
In shock, she ran out of the room and looked for help.
“A nurse asked me what language does he speak. I said ‘I speak English. He speaks English. We’re not Spanish-based people.”
Despite a consultation with a neurologist, doctors cannot explain how he could have woken up from the coma speaking a different language.
However, there have been previous incidents have also happened wherein other patients acquired a new language or a different accent after experiencing a major trauma. It is diagnosed as foreign accent syndrome, according to CNN.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also shared how concussions and severe brain injuries can alter a person’s language function.
Weeks after the incident, Rueben recovered his ability to speak his first language English. He now knows two languages and is able to speak both fluently. However he also admitted that the Spanish is slowly beginning to fade.
Doctors are positive that he will fully heal based on his current brain scans. Rueben’s bills have climbed up to a total of $ 250,000. Fortunately, a GoFundMe page for the teen was able to collect $ 11,000 to go towards the estimated range of cost.
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