Finally, she wrote: Ms. Ward, this may sound incredible. I’m a physician at Memorial Medical Center. A long-term coma patient has woken, and I strongly suspect he may be your brother, Caleb. She hit send before she could overthink it, the message feeling like a flare tossed into thick fog.
Hours later, an alert blinked across her screen. The reply was brief, cautious, trembling between disbelief and hope: That’s not possible. They found part of his gear—a helmet and a few notes—but not him. Helen replied, explaining that formal next-of-kin identification would involve law enforcement.