A Look at The Fight Behind Hurt N.Y. Firefighter's Miracle

June 16--After almost a decade in a semiconscious state, Donald J. Herbert woke up lucid on a Saturday afternoon in April 2005 and was talking and catching up with family and friends -- for nearly 16 hours that first day and also at times the next two weeks.

But when the injured Buffalo firefighter slept at night, he thrashed around the bed in the nursing home where he had lived since a roof caved in on him while fighting a fire.

"It was like he was reliving the fire, like he was underneath the debris that crushed him," Simon F. Manka, his uncle, recalled in a deposition. "I would have to physically restrain him. I would have to grab him, and I would have to tell him, 'Donny, Donny! It's OK.' Eventually, he would calm back down again."

For two weeks after the awakening, Manka or another family member spent the night with Herbert at Father Baker Manor in Orchard Park to prevent him from hurting himself.

Exhausted, his uncle decided not to stay with him in the early-morning hours of May 16, 2005 -- it would be the first overnight without someone from the family in Herbert's room.

Shortly after midnight, Herbert fell out of bed, injuring his head.

Herbert was taken to Erie County Medical Center, where it took nine stitches to close the wound on his forehead. Three and a half hours later, an ambulance returned him to the nursing home.

At that time, with the family trying to protect its privacy amid frenzied national attention, it was not clear how long or how well Herbert and his loved ones were able to communicate. His fall was described as a minor setback.

But what happened to Herbert after the awakening at Father Baker Manor and ECMC is now at the center of a State Supreme Court lawsuit his wife, Linda, has filed against the facilities and several doctors.

Her lawsuit for unspecified damages claims their negligence contributed to or caused her 44-year-old husband's death on Feb. 21, 2006.

In court papers, those closest to Herbert describe how he slid back into a minimally conscious state after the injury.

The doctors being sued offer differing opinions.

Dr. David P. Hughes, the attending physician that night at ECMC, said he told Herbert's wife that he wanted to admit Herbert for observation, because a head scan showed he suffered a hemorrhage within his skull but outside of his brain tissue. Hughes said Herbert was discharged against his medical advice, at Mrs. Herbert's request.

And Dr. Elizabeth M. Love, a physician at the nursing home and also among those being sued, denied any connection between Herbert's head injury and his regression and eventual death.

The cocktail of different drugs that aroused him on that April Saturday afternoon simply did not have a lasting effect, Love said.

Whoever prevails in court, this post-script to the stirring story of Herbert's awakening provides a clearer picture of the family's joy over what seemed like a miracle but also the frustration and heartbreak his loved ones lived through.

Copyright 2013 - The Buffalo News, N.Y.