[JohnR]

Just over a week ago, Scott Ashworth was picking out a cemetery plot for his only son, wondering how many weeks or years he’d be on life support as the death grip of EEE locked his body in a coma.

Turns out Derek Ashworth, a 23-year-old semi-pro football player, is as strong off the field as he is on.
In a stunning turn of events, Derek, who contracted Eastern equine encephalitis from a mosquito bite, has awakened from a six-day coma.
“As bad as he had it, typically they don’t do well. But doctors also said ‘Don’t ever give up hope. There’s always a chance for a miracle.’ If I didn’t believe in him before, we do now,” said Scott Ashworth, the Rochester fire chief.


His son walked 10 steps on Wednesday, ate pureed chicken and mashed potatoes and started talking and asking questions about the past 14 days of his hospitalization.
Yesterday, in his fifth-floor Boston Medical Center room, the wide receiver wore his Middleboro Cobras jersey and clutched a football. He sat in his wheelchair and talked on a cell phone as his girlfriend and parents looked on.

The whole story here: http://news.bostonherald.com/localRe...ticleid=154398

Keep going Derek!