His Family Made Funeral Plans. Then, 'Craziest Moment Ever'

On Dec. 12, T. Scott Marr was found unconscious and barely alive by his son. On Dec. 13, the 61-year-old Nebraska man's family was told recovery was unlikely after an apparent stroke, so they gave permission for his breathing tubes to be removed and started making calls to plan his funeral, per the World-Herald. Then, on Dec. 14, Marr earned his nickname the "Miracle Man." That's the day Marr's four children got a phone call informing them their dad was starting to respond, and when they arrived at his hospital room, they experienced "the craziest moment ever," his daughter Preston Marr tells KETV. "[I] said, 'Hi, Dad' [and] he smiled at me," she says, adding that she then asked him to move his toes and thumbs and he was able to, ever so slightly.

It turns out Marr, a former sports announcer for Creighton University (KMTV has an audio clip), hadn't had a stroke after all: Further testing showed he'd suffered from a rare, "poorly understood" condition called posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, or PRES, which is often linked to high blood pressure and usually resolvable if it's quickly recognized and treated. A doctor at the hospital where Marr was treated tells the World-Herald that the stroke diagnosis came about because Marr had a lot of brain swelling, which isn't usually a PRES symptom. Now Marr is back home after a few weeks of physical, speech, and occupational therapy in the hospital. "I'm not an extremely religious person," he says. "But I do believe in God, and … now this is just proof for me that everything [I've been told about God] is true." (A man's family was planning funeral songs when he awoke from his coma.)