Coma

WHEN THE Chinese writer Ma Jian was in his 20s, he and some friends went to a graveyard, where they found that some of the bodies, half-decomposed, had become unearthed. But they weren't scared or disgusted. Instead, they got closer. Using a stick, Ma recalls, "We removed the body parts. We wanted to take them home and wash them and keep them in formula."

Two teenagers were charged with murder Tuesday in the death of an 87-year-old woman who was beaten into a coma while her mobile home was being robbed. Investigators say Cesar Pulido and Mike Garcia, both 16, crawled through Storma Del' Andrae's window Feb. 11 and pummeled her head with hammers. Del' Andrae was left bloody and unconscious while the suspects stuffed a suitcase with jewelry and other valuables. She suffered a fractured skull, fell into a coma for three weeks and died Friday.

Firefighters waited in hospital hallways, the campfire smell of their last call heavy on their gear. Word had spread quickly among the Buffalo department's ranks. Donny Herbert wasn't doing well. It was February 2006, but as Linda Herbert watched her husband slip away, it was as if the sun was finally setting on a day that had dawned more than a decade earlier. Four days after Christmas in 1995, Herbert had nearly died in a roof collapse that robbed his brain of oxygen for more than six minutes.

Two Garden Grove girls are awake, alert and likely to recover fully despite spending some time on life support after being injured Sunday when their family's car was struck by a driver suspected of being under the influence of marijuana. Family and physicians said they were amazed that Brittany Figueroa, 11, and her sister, Ariana, 6, were in good condition Tuesday after surviving the accident in Stanton.

Assisted by tiny electrodes implanted in his brain, a man who had been in a coma-like state for six years regained the ability to drink from a cup, comb his hair and speak in short sentences, researchers said Wednesday. Within hours of receiving what researchers described as a pacemaker for the brain, the man opened his eyes and tracked the movement of people in his hospital room.

Hard to watch, and hard not to keep watching, the HBO documentary "Coma" is not actually about coma but about what comes after. (The more accurate "Traumatic Brain Injury" isn't quite as arresting a title.) A state of profound unconsciousness from which a person cannot wake, a coma provides no information; whatever there is to say about it, there is nothing there to see. It is a dark pool. When the eyes open, the coma ends and the questions begin. The idea here is simple.

Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent at the center of an international poisoning mystery, was buried here Thursday, his body still so radioactive that health officials wouldn't let it be displayed at a memorial service.

Former USC All-American end Marlin McKeever was in a comatose condition and in intensive care at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach after falling and hitting his head at his home Tuesday night, longtime friend John Papadakis said. Papadakis said McKeever, 66, a two-time All-American who played offensive and defensive end as well as fullback and punter for the Trojans from 1958 to 1960, had a blood clot removed from his brain Wednesday night and that physicians were "trying to find hope."

A 5-year-old Chicago girl who never awoke from her sedation during a visit to the dentist died at Children's Memorial Hospital, a hospital official said. Kindergartner Diamond Brownridge had been in a coma and on life support since the weekend dentist visit, said Julie Pesch, a hospital spokeswoman. Family members said Diamond received a triple dose of sedatives -- an oral agent, an intravenous drug and nitrous oxide gas -- during Saturday's dental visit.

A Perris man charged with beating his wife so severely last year that she slipped into a coma is now accused of stealing her identity while out on bail to pay his bail bond and attorney's fees, and buy a house in San Bernardino County. Rashod Danyea Anderson, the 31-year old father of two and owner of Eliminator Carpet Cleaning, has been charged with 13 new felony counts, including identity theft, forgery and dependent abuse, the Riverside County district attorney's office announced Thursday.