Man Was Dead for 90 Minutes, Comes Back to Life and Shocks Doctor

T.J Scanlon
Man miraculously survived after falling from a 20 feet high staircase in a Columbia apartment. Doctor said 'This a case like I have never seen before.' Photo from Facebook: T.J Scanlon

A 32-year-old man named T.J. Scanlon from Maryland fell down from 20-foot staircase last March and clinically died for about 90 minutes before coming back to life and shocking his doctor, Dr. H Neal Reynolds.

His doctor said he "died for an hour and a half before being brought back to life" and marveled that he has never seen such a case before. When Scanlon was brought to the hospital which was two days after his co-worker and roommate found him "clinging to life."

The doctor said it's a miracle for Scanlon to have survived such incident -with severe spinal cord injury leaving him paralyzed from his chest down to his leg. The doctors were also "forced to amputate his left leg and fingertips because he had spent days in the freezing cold," CBS News reported.

Scanlon said, "It was a rough scene. I was down. I was moaning. My eyes were rolling in the back of my head. I was in a pool of dry blood. I was blue, my legs were grayish, my legs were black, my hands were black. I was alive, luckily. Still alive at that point."

2 months and 29 operations, "[Scanlon's] recovery is also called a miracle - a result of his unbreakable spirit, love and support, and the best medicine out there" CBS Baltimore reported.

It all happened one Saturday night after going out with some of his friends. Upon coming home to his apartment at Columbia, he was looking for his keys when he "lost his balance" resulting to the fall.

Scanlon said to Boston Herald that seeing his pictures 11 months after the incident was "crazy." He said, "I don't even remember the first three weeks in the hospital."

Scanlon said, "I'm going to push myself as far as I can and then I'm going to continue to live my life. I believe in faith very much and I think for whatever reason, I was meant to be there that night, but I was meant to survive. I was meant to carry on."

He is now "rehabbing from near-fatal accident with the help of Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital" Boston Herald reported.

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