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Sleeping Pill Helps Australian Stroke Patient Talk

Sam Goddard was fighting for his life for over a year after several strokes, and is now believed to have been healed after taking the sleeping medication Ambien.

Now 24-years-old, Goddard was playing football in native Brisbane, Australia, last year when his head began to ache so severely that he was rushed to the hospital. He has since suffered from eight strokes, and was believed to lead the rest of his life in a vegetative state.

Goddard’s fiancée, Sally Jane Nielson, was told by numerous doctors that the eight stokes had caused irreversible brain damage, and that her betrothed would likely never talk or walk again, and possibly even go blind.

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Speaking to MSNBC Monday, Nielson recounted hearing the news.

“They said he would be a vegetable,” said Nielson. “There was actually a doctor that told us that we would be better off letting Sam contract an infection, put him in a home, and just let him die.”

The strokes occurred just three weeks prior to their May 2010 wedding, but Nielson has stayed by Goddard. She was determined that her boyfriend of four years and the man she planned to marry would awaken again. After 45 days in a coma in the Intensive Care Unit of Royal Brisbane Hospital, Goddard woke up.

His progress was hindered by pneumonia, but Goddard began intense therapy and regained the ability to walk. With only the brain function of a young child, the 24-year-old was still unable to speak and could only moan.

Still determined, Nielson scoured the Internet for research options to treat those who suffer from strokes. After finding video footage of a stroke patient speaking and feeding himself, Nielson the realized patient’s progress was because of the sleeping aid, Ambien.

Ambien, or Zolpidem, is considered a sedative-hypnotic drug used to treat those who suffer from insomnia, or sleeplessness. It works by slowing activity in the brain to permit sleep.

“It just blew my mind,” said Nielson, who immediately consulted doctors about using the sleeping aid as a treatment. “They almost laughed at us really. They didn’t think it was possible that a sleeping pill could awaken someone. But I felt compelled to [try it].”

Goddard’s medical team refused to prescribe the drug citing the lack of research behind its effectiveness, but Nielson obtained the pills anyway. Just days after taking Ambien, Goddard began to talk. After receiving a message on his answering machine, Goddard’s father, John Goddard, described his reaction.

“There was Sam saying, ‘I’m talking, I’m talking.’ It was unbelievable,” said Goddard speaking to MSNBC.

Also speaking with MSNBC was Sam Goddard himself, who said he “felt like shouting it from the rooftops” when his speech ability returned.

Nielson said that Ambien “shows what I believed was true - he was really in there.”

“A lot of people expected me to walk away,” said Nielson, who still plans on marrying Goddard. “But they just didn’t realize our connection isn’t broken, it’s stronger than anything I’ve ever known before.”

“I wouldn’t be me without him,” she added. “I’d be heartbroken.”

Goddard takes four Ambien doses a day, but it only lasts an hour or less. “It is very difficult to comprehend the fact that I can talk now and in an hour or so I won’t be able to talk at all,” he explained. “It really sucks.”

It is still unclear how the sleeping aid is improving Goddard's condition. Today, Ambien is being tested at the Moss Rehabilitation Center in Philadelphia, Pa., for results in stroke patients’ progress.

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