CFN can't help but be a sucker for happy endings sometimes " and after the previous, we're all ready for something a little cheery. What better than this update on a 21-year-old Oklahoma man still hanging in there after being pronounced dead last November.
For those who missed this story the first time round, Zack Dunlap of Frederick was declared brain dead Nov. 19, 2007, at a Wichita Falls, Texas, hospital due to head injuries after an all-terrain vehicle accident. On the verge of having his organs harvested, he jerked his hand and foot, decidedly proving otherwise. These days, The Associated Press reports he said he's feeling "pretty good."
Dunlap, who was sent home from the hospital 48 days later and is still recovering, recently appeared on NBC's "Today" show, which offered additional insights into the cowboy hat-wearin' young man's near-death (er, death?) experience. Such as:
He remembers hearing a doc pronounce him brain-dead (!), which made him a wee bit angry. "I'm glad I couldn't get up and do what I wanted to do," he told his "Today" show interviewer. "Probably would have been a broken window they (the medics) went out." When a nurse started taking out Dunlap's tubes four hours after he had been proclaimed dead, one of his cousins, Dan Coffin, a nurse, thought "he wasn't as dead as the doctors said," according to the "Today" show.
"On a hunch, Dan pulled out his bone-handled pocketknife and ran the blade up the sole of one of Zack's feet," according to the "Today" show.
Ouchie!
So that's why he moved.
Today, "the strapping Oklahoman" with "a soft drawl" " as those Yankees predictably labeled Dunlap " said the healing process frustrates him as he still struggles with memory and emotional repercussions.
"I just ain't got the patience," he said.
But, he added later, "It makes me thankful that they didn't give up. Don't let the good die young." - Gazette staff
