- "Brain injury is a highly complex area of medicine
and one in which it is very difficult to predict the degree and course
of any patient's recovery."
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- HONG KONG -- A woman
television presenter who was critically injured in the Potters Bar train
crash has made a miraculous recovery - nearly two years after doctors declared
her brain-dead and said that she should be allowed to die. F1 Fantasy Pro
Racing
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- Relatives of Tanya Liu, a 34-year-old Taiwanese-born
newsreader, say they were told by British doctors that she was in a persistent
vegetative state after the crash in May 2002, which killed two of her friends
and five other people, and left 76 injured.
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- Doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in north London said
that Ms Liu's injuries were so horrific that there was no hope for her,
according to her family. "Four days after the crash, one doctor said
that we 'should let her go'," Ms Liu's brother-in-law, Vincent Meng,
said last week.
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- "I told him to go and ask Tanya and if she says
yes then we would let her go. But if she cannot answer you, you follow
our word. You are just a doctor - you cannot act as a god."
-
- Horrified by the doctor's suggestion, Ms Liu's family
sought a second opinion from a Chinese neurosurgeon, who flew to London
from Beijing, and said that in her opinion Ms Liu could, in time, recover.
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- The journalist's most serious injuries were to her skull,
which was broken open. The resulting brain damage led to much of her memory
being erased. The part of the brain which handles every day decisions,
however, remained intact. She also suffered injuries to her liver, spine
and ribs.
-
- Less than a month later, her family arranged for Ms Liu
to be transferred to Dr Ling Feng's care in Beijing. The Royal Free doctors
still believed that she would not recover, according to Mr Meng. "When
we transferred Tanya to Beijing, they still predicted on paper that she
will be in a persistent vegetative state," he said.
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- Within two months of the crash, however, in July 2002,
Ms Liu regained consciousness. Over the next year, she had to endure six
operations - twice for brain surgery - and was not able to stand up unaided
until near the end of 2002. Last week, however, her painful journey to
rehabilitation was almost complete when she returned to Hong Kong, and
declared that she intended to return soon to her work as a television presenter
with a local satellite station on a part-time basis.
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- Ms Liu was on holiday in Britain with two colleagues
when the accident happened. The three women were planning to go sightseeing
in Cambridge when they boarded the King's Cross to King's Lynn train.
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- It derailed and mounted the platform at Potters Bar,
Hertfordshire. It is believed to have happened when the four-carriage West
Anglia Great Northern train, travelling at 96mph, went over a faulty set
of points.
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- Her two companions, Chia Hsin Lin, 30, a student at the
University of London, and Chia Chin Wu, 31, a fellow television journalist,
were killed instantly.
-
- Ms Liu, who has little recollection of what happened,
plans to stay in Hong Kong for two weeks before going to Taiwan to visit
the graves and families of her two friends. "Since I have been in
hospital I have been thinking of when can I go back to Hong Kong and Taipei,"
she said. "I felt really bad when I was in bed and couldn't do anything."
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- A spokesman for the Royal Free said that the hospital
could not comment on conversations between doctors and relatives, and could
not confirm that any doctor had made the comments alleged by the family.
-
- The spokesman added: "Brain injury is a highly complex
area of medicine and one in which it is very difficult to predict the degree
and course of any patient's recovery.
-
- "Ms Liu suffered a very severe injury and we were
very worried about her future prospects. We have not seen her since she
left the Royal Free in 2002 but if various reports of her current condition
are reliable, we are delighted for her and for her family and wish her
every success."
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- Members of her family, along with those of the other
victims, are still awaiting the results of a Health and Safety Executive
report into the causes of the crash. They are also all discussing with
lawyers whether to take legal action against Railtrack or Jarvis, the engineering
company responsible for track maintenance at the scene of the derailment.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/21/
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