Teen's Flu Nightmare: Four-Month Coma, Daily Deaths and Miraculous Recovery
Trinity Shores, now 22, has shared the harrowing details of her battle with influenza that began when she was just 14 years old. What started as a fever that sent her home from school escalated into a life-threatening medical crisis that would see her spend four months in a medically induced coma, technically dying every day during the initial phase of her treatment.
The Rapid Descent into Critical Condition
Trinity recalls her last clear memory before everything went dark: her father rushing her to hospital at such speed that they were pulled over by police. "That's my last real memory," she says. "Then it's just black."
Doctors discovered her lungs were so overwhelmed with fluid that her brain was being starved of oxygen. As her body began shutting down, her bowels released - a grim indicator that multiple systems were failing simultaneously. She was transferred to a specialist hospital while her parents were advised to call family and prepare for the worst possible outcome.
Extreme Life-Support Measures
To keep her alive, medical teams implemented extraordinary interventions. Surgeons inserted ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) life-support cannulas into her neck - thick metal tubes that removed her blood, oxygenated it externally, and pumped it back into her body because her lungs had completely stopped functioning.
Additional measures included dialysis to cleanse her blood, machines to force air into her collapsed lungs, a tracheotomy cut into her throat to assist breathing, and a feeding tube delivering liquid nutrition directly to her stomach.
Conscious but Trapped
Perhaps most terrifyingly, Trinity says she was mentally conscious for approximately half of her time in the coma. "It's like sleep paralysis, but times a million," she describes. "You can hear everything. You can feel everything. You just can't move."
She recalls doctors instructing her to move her hands while she screamed internally: "I AM! Why can't you see it?!" Her brain, struggling to make sense of the medical interventions, fabricated disturbing alternate realities. In one hallucination, she believed she was a soldier shot in the face during a base raid. In another, she was convinced her mother was selling her organs, while a separate delusion had her believing her younger brother had stabbed her in the neck.
Daily Deaths and Spiritual Experiences
During the first month of her ordeal, Trinity's heart stopped every single day, meaning she technically died repeatedly. "I experienced something spiritual," she reveals. "I saw darkness, a huge tree, glowing orbs of energy. I felt love and acceptance. I thought, 'If this is dying, I'm ready.' But I wasn't done."
She credits her mother with pulling her back from the brink. "She never stopped talking to me," Trinity explains. "She'd hold my hand and tell me everything we were going to do together when I got better - our future horses, a big garden, our land. She manifested my recovery before anyone believed it was possible."
The Long Road to Recovery
After months of sedation, doctors began the delicate process of waking her. "They put Vaseline in your eyes in a coma so they don't dry out," she notes. "I woke up and thought I was blind."
Her thirst became overwhelming. "I hallucinated water - perfect cold bottles with condensation. I cried watching nurses drink from their tumblers. I have never wanted anything more than water."
When her neck cannulas failed and she began bleeding out six litres of blood, surgeons switched them to her abdomen, slicing directly into both sides of her heart. She eventually required three open-heart surgeries, the last performed while she was awake with only pain medication. "Couldn't move. Couldn't cough. I had to use a bedpan because sitting up felt like dying."
Permanent Damage and Determined Recovery
The rehabilitation process was gruelling. It took weeks for Trinity to stand, months to speak, and nearly a year to rebuild enough muscle to walk without assistance. Although she survived, her lungs sustained permanent damage. She now lives with bronchiectasis, a chronic condition where airways collapse and trap infection, causing daily mucus buildup.
"I get winded fast. I cough up phlegm. I use a nebulizer with hypertonic saline," she says, adding with characteristic dark humour: "I call it my sexy mucus era."
Doctors have told her she will never regain full lung function, but Trinity refuses to accept this prognosis. "Science said I'd be dead, but here I am. So why not keep improving?" She now regularly attends the gym, pushing her lungs harder each week, determined to eventually run a mile without stopping.
A New Perspective on Life
"I haven't fully processed it," she admits. "Back then I was just fighting. But now? I look at my scars and realise, that all really happened. This experience made me who I am. That's why I have my star tattoo - I believe I'm here for a reason. I survived for something bigger. I just don't know what yet."
Her final reflection captures her hard-won appreciation: "I'm just happy to be alive. And to drink my own water whenever I want."
