What it’s really like waking from a coma: I may seem normal, but I’ll never be the same after those lost 48 days. Every time I look at my son I’m reminded of how I’m forever changed

Danielle Donald woke up in a hospital bed, totally confused.

She had suffered a seizure in her early twenties – maybe she’d had another one?

But something about this felt different. Scarier. 

‘Where am I?’ She opened her mouth but there was no sound. Her words were choked by the tube down her throat. 

She was hooked up to other bleeping machines, too. Her vision was blurry and her entire body was racked with pain.

One of the nurses around her bed stepped forward to speak to her.  

She told Danielle she’d been in a coma for 48 days after the car she was driving had hit a tree at high speed.

The 31-year-old remembered nothing of the crash, which had caused a severe brain injury and broken her back, ribs and face. A flying shard of glass had damaged the vision in her right eye. 

She’d been on life support since arriving at a hospital in Melbourne six weeks earlier. It was a miracle she wasn’t brain dead.

But there was something even more profound that Danielle was unable to recall.

She had a 14-month-old son, Bruce. He’d been in the back seat of the at the car when the accident happened, but was unharmed. 

‘I didn’t know who Bruce was,’ Danielle tells me. 

Even when her little boy was brought in to see her, Danielle was still confused and felt heartbreakingly disconnected from her own child.

‘I couldn’t put two and two together. I couldn’t understand he was mine. I couldn’t hold him because of the nerve damage in my arms. I could only look,’ she says. 

The day everything changed 

Before her accident, Danielle was a hair stylist and makeup artist. She loved getting dolled up in glamourous outfits for nights out with friends.  

She was a single mother to Bruce and fiercely independent. 

The accident had changed everything.  

While Danielle was unable to recall details of what happened, a police investigation was able to piece together the events of that fateful day. 

Danielle had been driving at dusk along a country road from Tarrawingee in Victoria to her parents’ home in Eldorado.

Bruce had been sitting in his car seat in the back on the left hand side.  

Danielle was driving in a 110km/h zone when a kangaroo jumped out from the bushes on the side of the road. 

To try to avoid hitting the animal, which was on her son’s side of the car, Danielle panicked and swerved. The vehicle hit the roo on her side before colliding with a tree.

Nearby homeowners who heard the screeching sound from the crash dialled Triple-0 and emergency services rushed to the scene. 

Danielle’s dad and brother, both volunteers for the Country Fire Authority (CFA) which assists firefighters, also arrived at the scene without any idea Danielle was the one who’d been in the crash.

‘It breaks my heart knowing they both would’ve recognised my car straight away,’ she says.

‘I had to be physically cut out of the car. Bruce was distraught but completely fine.’

Danielle was airlifted to The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne for urgent care while Bruce was taken to Wangaratta hospital.

After arriving at the Alfred, she remained there for 48 days in a coma.

During that time, her parents were asked an unthinkable question by doctors: Do you want to turn off her life support?

The doctor explained the hospital needed the bed and if Danielle were to wake up, there was a high likelihood she would need around-the-clock care. 

Danielle’s parents, who were also now caring for Bruce, refused to give up on her.

She was transferred from the Alfred to Epworth Hospital where she eventually woke up from her coma.

The road to recovery

From then on, Danielle had to relearn how to walk, talk, read and take care of herself. 

‘The coma was the easy part. The hard part was when I got out and had to live day-to-day like this,’ she says. 

At the start, Danielle was bedridden and developed a blood clot from lying down all day, for which she needed medication. 

‘I just wanted my normal life back and they had to teach me the basics like how to cross a road,’ she tells me. 

The rehabilitation was exhausting and mentally challenging for Danielle.

Even after she was well enough to leave the hospital, she had to move back in with her parents and needed ongoing physio and doctor appointments. 

Doctors would use large flashcards with pictures on them to help improve Danielle’s memory, but her score was always below average.

‘I have post-traumatic amnesia, so I can remember memories from 10-20 years ago but can’t remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday,’ she explains. 

‘I’m also unfit to work which has been a really confronting life change for me. Life is over in that regard.

‘I think slowly, struggle with my emotions, and have ADHD and OCD. I avoid going out and prefer going to the gym.’

Grieving the loss of her former self

Accepting that her looks have changed has also been challenging for Danielle.  

‘Before the accident, I was all about looking good. I was into beauty, I loved attention and makeup, but now I get attention for all the wrong reasons,’ Danielle says.  

‘I get weird stares from people because I look a bit different and walk a bit different, which has impacted my mental health.

‘I’ve gone from this glamour girl to being a mentally disabled single mum.’

Now Danielle describes herself as ‘bright but brain damaged’. She avoids social situations, taking selfies or looking at herself in the mirror because her reflection is so different to the person she once was.

Her son Bruce is now eight and one of the biggest challenges she faces is being a mother with limitations.

‘I have the mental capacity of a child; I get angry or frustrated really easily and when I do it’s difficult to get over things,’ she explains.

In a way, she and her son have the same emotional capacity.

To cope with the trauma of the accident, Danielle has shifted her focus to health, fitness and wellbeing. 

She exercises every day and describes the gym as her ‘happy place’.

For the last three months she’s been training intensely to compete in a bodybuilding competition – the AusFitness Expo. 

‘Gym has been my love since I was able to live as an adult again,’ she says.

Danielle describes her parents as the ‘real heroes’ in her story. They moved 300km to be closer to her while she was in hospital, supported her through her recovery and have played a key part in raising their grandson.

Danielle says her own relationship with Bruce is now ‘amazing’. 

‘That’s why I’ve kept going,’ she says.