Sharista Giles: Mom Wakes Up From Coma to Find She's Had Her Baby
— -- Sharista Giles was five months pregnant when a car accident left her in a coma in December.
Doctors originally told her family that the she would never wake up, but on Wednesday, the 20-year-old opened her eyes, her aunt told ABC News.
"The doctors were telling us there was nothing else they could do," said Beverly Giles, 49, of Madisonville, Tennessee. "They already gave up hope. We never gave up. She's fought this hard."
Sharista's family moved her to the Harriman Care and Rehabilitation Center in March, according to a Facebook page that Giles manages. The center called to tell them she was awake on Wednesday and they rushed to see her, she said.
"The whole place was packed out with family," Giles said.
Doctors were forced to deliver the baby prematurely in January, but Sharista's family hasn't named him yet. For now, they call him "Baby L," Giles said, adding that he was less than two pounds when he was born, but now weighs 6 pounds and 4 ounces.
Sharista blinked, gave her family members' hands a squeeze when they tickled her and followed her father around with her eyes, Giles said.
"He showed her a picture of her baby, and she followed the picture," she said. "When he turned around to put it back on the bulletin board, she turned her neck, her whole head trying to follow and find the picture again."
It's too soon to know Sharista's prognosis, but Giles said the family hopes to bring Baby L to her when he is ready to leave the University of Tennessee Medical Center's neonatal intensive care unit.
