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A man named Richard Rudd was left paralysed and brain damaged after suffering a motorbike accident last October.  Richard's father reluctantly gave permission for treatment to be withdrawn from his 43-year-old son at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

The staff gathered around his bed prior to withdrawing treatment and noticed their previously unresponsive patient was able to blink his eyes for the first time.  The amazed staff decided to ask him directly what he wanted.  The doctors asked Mr Rudd three times if he wanted to carry on living

Three times he blinked “yes” in reply to their questions.

This was the first time Mr Rudd had responded to any stimuli in three weeks and the moment was captured on a BBC documentary, entitled Between Life and Death.  Far from being brain-dead, as his family had feared, Mr Rudd was perfectly aware of his situation and finally able to communicate.  Now nine months later, he can move his head from side to side and smile at his family.

“He had severe injuries to his brain and we could not communicate with him. The outcome was thought to be very bleak indeed,” said Professor David Menon, who was in charge of Mr. Rudd’s care at Addenbrooke’s.   

Mr Rudd is now in a lower dependency unit nearer his home in Worcester and hopes to go to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, where he will be taught to communicate using his tongue, eyes and facial muscles.

His father spoke of the family’s relief: “His daughters are certainly glad that he's alive. They joke around in front of him, he smiles and that lifts him for ages.  His long term memory is intact, he can make facial expressions, and has an Elvis Presley twitch on one side of his mouth. But physically, he's gone.  It might not be the same Richard that we started out with, but at least he's still coping because he still smiles when we talk about the past or when he sees his children.”

Mr Rudd’s case again raises the issue of patients who express a clear wish to die but then change their minds due to their circumstances.

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