Boy Wakes From 11-Day Coma—His First Words Left His Mom in Tears
For 11 agonizing days, 13-year-old Dakota “Cody” Trenkle Jr. lay in a hospital bed, fighting for his life after vanishing from his Missouri neighborhood.
The teen had gone missing while skateboarding, sparking a desperate three-day search. He was finally discovered at the bottom of a ravine—injured, dehydrated, and barely clinging to life. Rescuers rushed him to St. Louis, where doctors placed him in a medically induced coma with multiple brain bleeds, pneumonia, and severe trauma from the fall.
His mother, Stephanie, refused to leave his side. Every hour felt like an eternity as she waited for the smallest sign her son might return to her.
That moment finally came.
On the 11th day, Dakota stirred. Weak, still tangled in wires, he opened his eyes and looked at his mom. Then, slowly, he lifted his hands and signed three words she had longed to hear: “I love you.”
Stephanie broke down in tears. “That moment made every sleepless night and every ounce of fear worth it,” she said. “It was my proof that he was coming back to me.”
Since then, Dakota has taken small but powerful steps toward recovery—eating his first solid meal, breathing without a ventilator, and smiling through the pain. The road ahead is long: he can’t walk yet, his injuries remain serious, and his body is still battling infection. But his spirit? Unshaken.
Born prematurely, Dakota had fought for his life once before. Now, almost 14 years later, he’s doing it again—reminding everyone around him that resilience can triumph even in the darkest of battles.
His first words after the coma weren’t just for his mother. They were a message for anyone facing impossible odds: Don’t give up.
People Who Woke Up From Comas Are Sharing What The Experience Was Like, And Holy Crap
“I woke up on Wednesday from the coma. I was trying to ask the doctors and my family questions about what happened to me, but I couldn’t talk (aphasia). I was just trapped in my head.”
1. “It felt like no time passed at all. One second I was out; the next second I was waking up. No dreams, no awareness, just nothingness.”
2. “I was in a medically induced coma for about 24 hours. It was like time traveling.”
3. “I spent several days in a medically induced coma after brain surgery years ago. I remember coming about a quarter of the way conscious a few times when I would be poked or prodded during exams. I would hear the conversations but could not feel any real sensation (as if my entire body had ‘gone to sleep’). I had no ability to move my body or to speak. I sometimes wonder if that was a false memory. I had some really weird (and very vivid) dreams for a couple of weeks afterward and had difficulty maintaining short-term memories for at least a month.”
4. “For me it was a deep, dreamless sleep. Not aware of anything external. Woke up a week later and didn’t know who I was or who my family was.”
5. “My husband was in a medically induced coma last summer. He remembered being in the house, then it was dark, and all of a sudden he was lying in a hospital bed. It had been almost five days.”
6. “If you’ve ever been under general anesthesia, it’s exactly like that.”
7. “I was in a COVID ventilator coma. I don’t remember going under, but I remember frantically calling my fiancée to say goodbye for what I thought was the last time. I don’t remember dreaming or hearing anything for two weeks. When I came out, I was very confused and didn’t remember much for a day or two. I lost the ability to walk for a week, had no hand-eye coordination, and could barely operate my phone. I got stage 4 pressure ulcers (bedsores) that took four years to heal from. Apparently, I would ‘wake up’ and try to remove my breathing tube occasionally.”
8. “My husband went for emergency surgery for a small bowel obstruction, and complications snowballed into respiratory failure and sepsis. He was out for nearly a month. He has no memory of it. Once he woke up, he was still on a ventilator for another week. During that time, he had vivid dreams about being kidnapped and struggling to get free.”
9. “I was in a coma for two weeks because of asthma earlier this summer. It was horrible. I was on ketamine and fentanyl. I would periodically understand what was going on, like ‘Oh, I’m lying down and unable to move or blink. What the hell happened?’ Then the delusions started. I had the strongest, most realistic delusions trying to figure out what I was hearing ‘on the outside.’ I thought I was in a horrible car accident and was thrown through my car windshield. I thought my mom died in the accident. I thought I texted my family and friends. None of it was real.”
10. “I was in an induced coma. It felt like you do when awakening from a long, deep sleep when they brought me around.”