He Woke From a Coma and Claimed He’d Been the Head Surgeon

In 1939–45, hospital newsletters mention a stern young surgeon named Dr. Leonard Clark. In 1984, a West Virginia taxi driver with the same name crashed on a rain-slick road and slipped into a deep coma. Doctors said he’d never wake up.

Six months later, he did—disoriented but oddly certain. His first words: “Prepare the patient for surgery.” Before anyone could correct him, Leonard walked down the hall, stepped into the operating room, picked up a scalpel, and began giving precise instructions no taxi driver should know. When the real surgeons intervened, he bristled. He insisted he’d been head surgeon there since 1943.

To prove it, he tore open plaster by the OR and pulled a rusted scalpel from the wall—its handle engraved: “Dr. ...