Name Gary Dockery | ||
 | ||
Died April 15, 1997, Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States Similar Terry Wallis, Elaine Esposito, Jan Grzebski | ||
Gary French Dockery (1954 – April 15, 1997) was an American police officer in Walden, Tennessee. After being critically injured in 1988, he spent 7½ years in a coma-like state. In 1996, he emerged from the coma and started talking enthusiastically, recognizing friends and recalling events from past years. He then fell back into a coma and died a year later.
Biography
On September 17, 1988, he was shot in the forehead by a drunken assailant as he responded to a domestic disturbance call. He slipped into what doctors called a persistent vegetative state, unable to communicate except occasionally with eye blinks and groans — indicating that part of his brain was still working.
But on February 11, 1996, he stirred and started talking, recognizing old friends, recalling the names of his horses, and recalling camping trips. By the second day he had largely become silent again, as he recovered from lung surgery and a serious bout of pneumonia. He never recovered to the same degree again.
A year later, on April 15, 1997, he died at the age of 43 from a blood clot in his lung. Dockery was transported from his nursing home to Erlanger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:52 a.m.