Annie Shapiro
Annie Shapiro (1913-2003) was a Canadian woman who in 1992 miraculously awakened from a coma like state after 29 years. She holds the record for being in a non-catatonic coma like state and then waking up (the longest were the catatonic patients in Awakenings. It is not publicly known which patient was in a stupor the longest but it is known that some may have been in it for up to around 50 years and it is known Lucy Fishman was in a stupor for over 40 years).
Biography[edit]
Unlike some of the famous awakenings after decades like Martin Pistorius, Terry Wallis, Jan Grzebski, and Sarah Scantlin, her story and biography is kept a bit more private. It is known she lived in the Greater Toronto Area but it is not publicly known which city in the GTA she lived in. She was an apron shop owner in a suburb outside either the current boundaries of Toronto or outside the Toronto boundaries at the time. She was married until his death at 81 in 1995 to a man whose first was Martin and they had 2 children, Marilyn (born 1936/1937) and Marshall (born 1946/1947). On November 22, 1963 she suffered a massive stroke and eventually fell into a persistent vegetative state. 2 unusual circumstances happened right before and during her stroke. Her stroke happened right in the exact moments John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Mrs. Shapiro was watching the breaking news when she suffered the stroke. The other unusual circumstance was the fact that Mrs. Shapiro the day before her stroke she got estranged from Marshall after he crashed the family's car. She was totally paralyzed until 1965 when she regained the ability with assistance of people holding her, to sit up and walk. It is not publicly known whether then or ever during her 29 years of being comatose that her state up upgraded to a Minimally Conscious State. Her husband and her moved to a retirement home in Florida but later moved back to Toronto where she awakened. On October 13, 1992 she was being treated for high blood pressure and awakened the next day. Dr. Glenn Englander who was the doctor treating her blood pressure wanted to experiment that the blood pressure treatment he used on Mrs. Shapiro could be used on other patients in longtime comas. Waking up in 1992, Mrs. Shapiro woke up shocked to discover how the greatly the world had changed. Unlike most people who wake up after permanent coma states, she was the only one of 2 people who made a full or near full recovery after waking up from a permanent coma like state (the other is Victoria Arlen) and was able to talk so much about how staunchly different everything was. She was able to reconcile with her son Marshall. Some the most drastic changes that shocked her were that she discovered she had 4 grandchildren (2 per both kids), 1 son and 1 daughter in law, that all her siblings were now dead, that there is wireless phones, and how old she, her husband, and kids had become. She died in 2003 and was Canada's only publicly known person to wake up from years long comas.
Legacy[edit]
When she was still alive, in 1998 the movie Forever Love was inspired by Annie Shapiro's story.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- "She Went to Sleep and Woke Up 30 Years Later", Ron Laytne, The Straits Times, April 5, 1998
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