A man with money on his mind has been awoken from a yearlong coma thanks to the powerful aroma of a crisp dollar bill.
It was also his obsession with money that landed him in a coma in the first place. The 30-year-old Xiao Li passed out in August of 2013 after spending a week without sleep at an Internet cafe researching business ideas. He was then taken to a hospital in Shenzen, China, where he's stayed up until recently when a nurse waved a 100 Yuan bill under the man's nose. He almost instantly started responding, as this image no doubt began to flash before his eyes.
According to the Mirror, chief medic Dr. Lui Tang asked Li's family what drove the man and what might have the power to wake him up.
"We had asked his family what really drove him, and they were very clear that it was money," Tang says. "When we learned about his fondness for money we experimented with notes and change. We found a crisp, new 100 Yuan note crumpled under his nose worked best."
As the bill sat under Li's noise, his fingers began to twitch as he reached up to take the money and his eyelids began to flicker.
"It was extraordinary - I've never seen anything like it in 20 years as a doctor," Tang says. "Memories of smell and sound can be very powerful stimulants."
Even though Li is now showing signs of life, he will stay in the hospital where nurses will continue to waft banknotes under his nose as a form of "therapy" until he is fully recovered.
