Georgia Teen Wakes From Coma Speaking Fluent Spanish

Soccer injury led to 16-year-old Reuben Nsemoh somehow knowing the foreign language

October 24, 2016

A Georgia teenager recently woke up from a coma and shocked everyone who knew him by speaking only in Spanish – a language he’d never been able to speak fluently before. Reuben Nsemoh’s English has since returned, but for the first few days after opening his eyes again, the 16-year-old strangely knew the foreign language better than ever before.

“My friends would always talk to me in Spanish and would teach me,” Nsemoh said. “I wasn’t perfect, but my brother is a really fluent Spanish speaker. So he kind of inspired me with that too.”

Nsemoh, a high school soccer goalie, sustained his third concussion after being kicked in the head during a game. WSB-TV reports he was airlifted to Atlanta Medical where he spent three days in a coma. During Monday’s Stern Show Howard asked his co-host Robin Quivers, formerly a registered nurse, how someone could wake up and suddenly be speaking Spanish.

“Your brain actually does capture everything,” she explained. “Whether you can spit it back out is another story.”

While Nsemoh’s coach called the injury one of the worst he’s ever seen, the teen says he still hopes to return to the game he loves.

“It’s my passion. It’s the one thing I want to do for my career,” Nsemoh explained. But if and when he returns, he now believes all goalies should be wearing a helmet.

Nsemoh’s parents have set up a GoFundMe page to help raise funds to cover his hefty medical bills. To read more about Nsemoh’s incredible story, click here.