An accident at a soccer game changed a teen's life in more ways than anyone could have anticipated.
Reuben Nsemoh was a 16-year-old sophomore when he had an accident during a game. Another player ended up kicking Reuben in the head hard enough to cause a concussion. At the worst point, the Atlanta teen ended up in a coma.
Thankfully, Reuben made progress toward recovery after a few weeks. His family was elated when he awoke from his coma.
Reuben woke up from the coma with a new skill. The teen was inexplicably able to speak fluent Spanish.
Reuben's parents explain that he could speak a little Spanish before, but at no point in his life had he been fluent. The new fluency made it harder for him to speak English.
As Reuben's English began coming back, he lost his Spanish fluency again. The phenomenon is known as foreign accent syndrome. The extremely rare condition happens when brain injuries change a person's speech patterns, giving them a different accent. It was first reported in 1941, when a Norwegian woman was hit with shrapnel during a German bombing and awoke speaking with a German accent. Only a few dozen cases have been reported since.
In March 2019, a Scottish man awoke from a coma only being able to speak Malay. Fraser Watt hadn't spoken Chinese or Malay since childhood, when he moved around due to his father's engineering job. After the accident, at 60 years old, he was able to speak Malay, for only 24 hours before it corrected itself.
"It's an impairment of motor control," Dr. Karen Croot explained to CNN.
"Speech is one of the most complicated things we do, and there are a lot of brain centers involved in coordinating a lot of moving parts. If one or more of them are damaged, that can affect the timing, melody and tension of their speech."
