A woman who fell into a coma ten months ago has woken up to discover that she is now a mother to a baby girl.
Cristina Rosi, 37, from Monte San Savino, in Tuscany, was seven months pregnant when she suffered a heart attack and fell into a coma in July last year.
Her daughter Caterina was delivered by doctors via an emergency Caesarean section while Ms Rosi remained in a coma.
Now, ten months after the ordeal, Ms Rosi’s husband Gabriele Succi, 42, described the ‘real joy’ that he and his wife were finally able to embrace after ‘so much suffering’.
He also said that Ms Rosi’s very fist word after she awoke from her coma was: ‘Mamma’.
Speaking to the Italian paper La Nazione Mr Succi said: ‘It’s a real joy after so much suffering. Even the doctors in the room have confirmed that Cristina has said her first word.’
The first-time mother has now been transferred to a clinic in Austria where she will receive 24-hour specialist care and undergo a neurological rehabilitation programme during her recovery.
Mr Succi said that staff at the hospital have also removed his wife’s tracheostomy tube in order to allow her to breathe for herself.
He continued: ‘My wife breathes and swallows by herself.
‘Seeing her progress and thinking about how she was only a few months ago with all the tests she had to overcome, it seems like a miracle.’
Mr Succi later told the Arezzo Notizie news website: ‘Cristina is hardly recognisable now.
‘She’s more relaxed, they removed her tracheotomy [and] through a pump they are giving her a medicine that should lead to other physical progress.’
Ms Rosi’s treatment, which sees her receive intense physiotherapy sessions, is now been funded by a GoFundMe page set up by her husband, which has so far raised more than £155,176 (€180,572).
However Mr Succi is now hoping to raise the amount to £257,808 (€300,000) in order to keep on financing his wife’s treatment abroad.
Mr Succi added: ‘So far we have been able to guarantee Cristina the therapies. We cannot stop now. My wife and daughter deserve to go home in the best possible condition.’