CBS News: Terri who?

In a sickening exploitation of a woman who in February emerged from a 20 year coma, (ignored by the national media while Terri Schiavo was being murdered) CBS News is now ready to use her story for ratings -- minus any mention of Terri Schiavo...

For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin was seemingly unaware of the world around her after she was hit by a drunk driver in an accident that sent her into a comatose state in September of 1984.

Then in February, she shocked her parents and doctors when she began to speak. In her first national television interview, after undergoing surgery on her long-unused limbs and speech therapy to unlock her long-dormant tongue, Scantlin speaks with The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith in a two-part interview to be broadcast Thursday and Friday....

The 1984 accident occurred when Scantlin was crossing the street in her hometown of Hutchinson, Kan. She suffered a massive brain injury and could not breathe on her own. Smith speaks with New York neurologist Randolph Marshall, who says that people like Scantlin rarely awake from such an injury. "You only hear about these cases very rarely and they’re always a surprise when they actually come to light," he says.

Scantlin’s speech is still limited.

However, it seems that throughout her 20-year coma, she could see, hear, and understand what was going on around her. Shortly after she awoke, her father asked what she knew about events that had occurred years earlier.

CBS may have a convenient case of amnesia, but many of us certainly do not.

Posted by Danny Carlton at August 5, 2005 11:27 AM