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Man Wakes Up From Amnesia, Speaks Only Swedish

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Jul 17, 2013 09:45 AM EDT

There have been some miraculous cases of patients waking up and speaking with a completely new accent. Although this rare foreign accent syndrome may sound bizarre, a case of an American man waking up from amnesia and can only speak Swedish might have just taken the top spot in strange language conditions.

According to the police, Michael Thomas Boatwright was discovered at a southern California Motel 6 back in February of this year. Based on the IDs that Boatwright had on him, the police concluded that he was born in Florida and had once served the U.S. Navy. Since Boatwright was unconscious, the police could not question him about his activities after finding five tennis rackets in his room. He was brought to the Desert Regional Medical Center where he woke up a few days later. Despite the recovery, Boatwright had no recollection of his past history, did not know who he was, and could not speak English.

Boatwright identified himself as Johan Ek, a Swedish man. When he was given a picture of himself, he could not recognize the man in the picture. Now, the 61-year-old man has stated that he has accepted the identity as Michael Thomas Boatwright after being told by the doctors that he should. However, to this day, he states that he still feels like Johan Ek, a feeling he cannot quite describe or explain.

Based from the work of social worker, Lisa Hunt-Vasquez who dug deeper into Boatwright's past, she found that Boatwright was an avian mechanic in the Navy from 1971 to 1973. She also found that Boatwright taught English in China for four years. There was also information that Boatwright resided in Japan and married a Japanese woman. They supposedly had a child together but Hunt-Vasquez could not confirm the details because there was no next-of-kin information available. That was where she hit a dead end after failing to uncover real information on Boatwright's possible Asian link.

The first to report on the story, Desert Sun, explained that Boatwright could be suffering from a fugue state, which could be triggered by trauma. This rare state often resolves on their own, but for now, Boatwright has accepted who he is based on reports and data from the Internet.

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