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| Europe |
| Polish man wakes up from 19-year coma to find commies gone, lots of food |
| 2007-06-02 |
| A Polish man has woken up from a 19-year coma to find the Communist party no longer in power and food no longer rationed, Polish TV reports. Railway worker Jan Grzebski, 65, fell into a coma after he was hit by a train in 1988. "Now I see people on the streets with mobile phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin," he told Polish television. He credits his survival to his wife, Gertruda, who cared for him. Doctors gave him only two or three years to live after the accident. "It was Gertruda that saved me, and I'll never forget it," he told news channel TVN24. She is reported to have moved her husband every hour to prevent bed sores. "I cried a lot, and I prayed a lot," Mrs Grzebski said on Polsat television. "Those who came to see us kept asking: 'When is he going to die?' But he's not dead." When Mr Grzebski had his accident Poland was still ruled by its last communist leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski. "When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere," Mr Grzebski said. The following year's elections ushered in eastern Europe's first post-communist government. Poland joined the Nato alliance in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. "What amazes me today is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning," said Mr Grzebski. "I've got nothing to complain about." |
| Posted by:John Frum |
| #6 JFM, want means, "curbing their spines"? ;-) |
| Posted by: RD 2007-06-02 23:32 |
| #5 The reason the Israel-born Jews are called Sabras (the fruit of the prickly pear) is because they're prickly on the outside, but sweet on the inside. JFM is probably right, but also they've been more or less at war for a full century now, and that tends to make people straightforward and effective in their communication style. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-02 21:48 |
| #4 Rob, I admire his wife. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-06-02 21:45 |
| #3 "I've got nothing to complain about." Damn, I admire that man. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2007-06-02 18:16 |
| #2 An isreali joke. A surveyor asks: "Exuse me what do you think about the derth of meat?" American: What means dearth? Russian: What means to think? Polish: What means meat? Isreali: What means excuse me? (A guy who had lived in Israel told me he was shocked by howimpolite were the Israelis. Perhaps a reactionto too many generations curbing their spines). |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-06-02 17:40 |
| #1 priorities get sorted out pretty quick when you almost die, huh? At least he appreciates the changes.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-06-02 17:23 |