ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220036
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHATTANOOGA, TENN.
SOURCE: MICHELLE WILLIAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS
GARY DOCKERY on Wednesday performed another simple, yet utterly amazing feat. He answered a question.
The brain-damaged police officer who spoke to his family after 7 1/2 years of silence, then had to undergo surgery that risked returning him to a comalike state, uttered his first words Wednesday since the operation.
Gary Dockery spoke three times, proof that his 18 hours of conversation Feb. 12 were not a fluke, doctors said.
In the morning, a nurse asked Dockery his name, which he repeated twice. Dr. James Folkening then rushed to his bedside and unsuccessfully tried to engage Dockery in conversation. Folkening had the nurse ask him what time it was, and ``he simply and quietly uttered a single word: `night,''' the doctor said.
Doctors speculated Dockery may have been disoriented about the time of day. His room doesn't have windows.
When neurologist Bruce Kaplan later asked Dockery the time he replied, ``3 o'clock.'' It was 12:15 p.m., so the clock's hands would have been at 12 and 3.
The words were Dockery's first since surgery Feb. 15 to remove infectious fluid from his lung.
Dockery, 42, was moved from a nursing home to Columbia Parkridge Medical Center on Feb. 11 for treatment of life-threatening pneumonia. He amazed everyone the next day by speaking for the first time since 1988.
For 18 hours, he recalled camping trips with buddies and the names of friends and horses. He telephoned his mother and brother.
Dockery also talked with his two sons, who were ages 5 and 12 when he was shot in the head while answering a call at Walden, a mountain community 10 miles from Chattanooga.
The family had visited him often at the nursing home, but Dockery could communicate only occasionally, by blinking, nodding, grimacing or moaning.
Kaplan said he hasn't determined why Dockery began speaking again. He said the ability likely was always there, but something unexplained triggered it.
One possibility, he said, was a medication or combination of medications Dockery received in the hospital that he hadn't been given during his years at the nursing home.
Kaplan cautioned that even if medications had restored Dockery's speech, they probably wouldn't have the same effect on other patients. ``This is an exceedingly unique situation,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File/1988 Last week, Gary Dockery spoke to his sons forby CNBthe first time since 1988.