US Woman Wakes Up With A New Zealand Accent After Being In Coma For Two-Weeks

A woman woke up with a strong New Zealand accent after being in a coma for two weeks.

Summer Diaz, was hit by an SUV as she crossed a road on November 25 last year, which caused her to develop foreign accent syndrome - a rare condition where damage to the brain makes someone speak differently.

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¡°I don¡¯t remember anything about that day,¡± said the 24-year-old from Los Angeles, California.

¡°I came home from my job working with children who have autism. I didn¡¯t have a parking space at my apartment so I had parked elsewhere and was walking across the street. I don¡¯t know what happened but apparently, I was halfway across the crosswalk and I was hit by the SUV.¡±

The driver called for help and Summer was rushed to the nearest hospital, where they discovered she had suffered a host of injuries including a broken pelvis, broken shoulder and a brain injury.

After the accident on November 25 last year, she spent two weeks in an induced coma and as it was during the pandemic, her family and boyfriend weren¡¯t even able to visit regularly. When she woke up, she was very disoriented and confused.

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Initially, Summer couldn't speak and communicate through sign language, which she learnt at university. As her voice started to return, Summer noticed her speech was different, but just put it down to being intubated while in a coma.

But as she went to speech therapy she felt her voice changing more and has since discovered she has a rare condition called foreign accent syndrome.

She said: "I went to rehab and my voice started to get a bit better. I was working with speech therapists but I was still speaking quite slowly, so it was hard to hear anything. As my voice got stronger people started to hear the accent more."

With Summer speech improving and with talking more, it wasn't long before people started to question her about her accent and ask where she was from.

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She said: "My nurses would come in and say 'where are you from?' and wouldn't believe me when I said 'I'm from here.' I would explain I was born here but they would say 'but you have an accent.' "I had to explain that it wasn't my accent and I just started doing it."

Throughout her recovery, Summer has gone through a range of accents, with some lasting just a few hours and others staying for months. She said: ¡°I had a very British accent, close to my boyfriend¡¯s for a while. I had a French one at one point and briefly, I was Russian. ¡°At the minute, it¡¯s settled on an Australian or New Zealand accent.¡±

Summer actually loves a different accent and wants to keep it. Well, we would too.