In 1984, when Sarah Scantlin was just eighteen years old, she was hit by a drunk driver and fell into a coma. Sarah had such severe brain injuries that doctors had to remove the part of her brain that enables speech. Though this kept her from dying, she still would not wake from her coma and had to be kept on life support. In 2005, after twenty years in her coma, Sarah miraculously woke up and began speaking. One of the first things Sarah did was ask the nurse for a manicure. In this documentary, filmed two years after she awoke from her coma, Sarah talks about being in the coma and coping now that she is out of it.

Nobody has ever lived so long in a coma and reawoken. Sarah explains how she was fully aware of what was going on about her during her coma but was unable to speak or communicate in any way. Now her family struggles to come to the reality that Sarah, who they thought they’d lost twenty years previously, is in their lives once again. They discuss how they’ve had to pay for her medical bills over the last twenty years and how it drained them of all their money. Now awake, they must once again find every way they can to help Sarah as she slowly gains recovery. She works towards a future where she can take back control of her body after so much muscle deterioration. This film explores how coma victim’s brains are in fact much more aware and receptive than previously thought.