Raising the dead. Part 2.

The second in a two-part series looking at people thought to be locked into an irreversible persistent vegetative state (PVS) who begin to show awareness. We hear the story of 38-year-old Raymond Hunt who, after almost 5 years in a vegetative state, began to show awareness - it is almost unheard of for someone to begin to show awareness after this long in PVS. Raymond himself is finding it very hard to adjust to his condition and he is aggressive and depressed. We hear in this episode too about families who have battled to end the lives of loved ones in a permanently vegetative state. Lorraine Lane suffered a massive brain stem stroke aged just 42 but after 6 months with no signs of awareness whatsoever husband Neil wanted to put an end to her life but she was re-classified as minimally aware and he is unable to. Perhaps most terrifying is the state known as 'locked in syndrome' in which a person is physically paralysed but mentally completely aware. 24-year-old Pheobe fell into a coma following a huge brain haemorrhage and after 6 months of being thought to be in a CVS her mother proved that she was in fact in a locked in state and she now communicates by blinking the letters of the alphabet. 42-year-old Jeanie Orme was also diagnosed as being in a locked in state. Using the limited movement she has in her wrist and a specially modified comupter she has written a book about her experiences and now lives back at home.