The Quiet Riot Show - Men's Mental Health Podcast · SuverMedia

10 Days in a Coma—The Fight to Rebuild Dave Jacobson’s Life | Ep.46

·1 hr 6 min·4 clips

Dave says half his skull was removed and a quarter-sized piece of brain tissue was taken out.

Dave Jacobson walks through the day his life changed after a high-voltage shock and a fall from a ladder. He says the accident happened in 2013, and after that things moved fast and badly. He was in a coma at HSC for about 10 days. He stayed there for about a month. He then moved to Riverview for rehabilitation. He says the brain surgery included having half his skull removed. The injury left him paralyzed on his right side. He had to relearn how to walk. He had to relearn how to talk. He remembers waking up at Riverview, not the coma itself. One of the first memories he describes is his mother touching his feet and saying she was his mother. He says that moment stayed with him. The hosts react with surprise as he describes a story that still feels hard to explain. Jacobson talks about how fast doctors saw things progress. He says nobody really knows how it happened. He frames part of it through faith. He says he has seen things he cannot explain. The conversation also makes room for the people around him. His parents, family, and doctors all had their own version of the event. That outside perspective matters because he does not remember the worst of it himself. The episode leans into that gap between the person living through the trauma and the people watching it unfold. It keeps the focus on rehabilitation, memory, and the strange fact of surviving something that should have ended differently. The result is a blunt, intimate account of being broken open and having to start over. The tone stays grounded even when the story sounds almost unbelievable. It is a story about damage, recovery, and the strange fact of still being here. It is also about how the people who love you remember the ordeal even when you cannot.

As heard by us

A spare recovery story about brain injury, memory loss, and the long road back.

Dave Jacobson's story is plain about survival: a fall from a ladder, a high-voltage shock, 10 days in a coma, brain surgery, and the slow work of learning to walk and talk again.

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Why you'd press play

A coma, a ladder fall, and a hard rebuild after a serious head injury.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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