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22nd April 2023
04:40pm BST
A former Arsenal academy player has been left needing 24 hour care after his drink was spiked on a night out.
Daniel Cain, 23, was spiked on June 9, 2020 after friends began to notice that he had turned a "funny colour" and wasn't waking up so attempted to perform CPR while they waited for the ambulance.
Medics had to work for over 20 minutes to get his heart beating again, by which time his spinal cord and brain had been starved of oxygen.
Doctors told Cain's family that even if he was to wake up, he would be in a vegetative state but after 25 days in a coma, woke up with his cognitive function gradually returning.
Tracey Cain, his mother, told The Independent: "When I found out I just went into automatic mum mode. I phoned his father who was at work and his sister came back from Essex. At around 3-4am in the morning, they tried to prepare us that he was not going to wake up but I said to keep trying. I wasn’t going to accept he wasn’t going to come around.
"When he woke up he couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t move - he was like a newborn but nurses said he was following them with his eyes, so they said there was 'someone in there."
His mother also revealed that while the 23-year-old's short-term memory has been affected by the incident, his long-term memory is still intact.
After spending over two years in various hospitals, Daniel returned home but now uses a wheelchair and requires constant help and care.
"He’s gradually coming back and is improving all the time," she added.
"His long-term memory, things from childhood, he still remembers all that.
"Again because I’m his mum, I’m just going to take it on board and do what I can, but it was a real strain. Because of Covid I wasn’t really allowed into the hospital to learn from the nurses about different things like lifting and handling and with spinal cord injuries, there are things like bowel and bladder management and the skin is also very sensitive. It was just a complete lifestyle change.
Cain has been gifted the opportunity to walk and stand again thanks to Neurokinex, who have offered intensive rehabilitation therapy.
A GoFund Me page has been set up in order to help the family pay for Cain's treatment, which is only part-funded through the NHS with charges at more than £60 an hour.
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