Girl shoots basketballs while in a coma

Maggie Meier, a high school basketball player from Overland Park, Kan., has played the game for so long, she has mastered the mechanics of shooting – even while in a coma, The Daily reported.

Doctors told The Daily that, while in a two-and-a-half month long coma, Maggie would cradle a beach ball in her hands and shoot it through the arms of her sister, who formed a makeshift hoop.

“I have never seen anything like it,” Dr. William Graf, Maggie’s neurologist told The Daily. “The act of shooting a basketball must have been ingrained as one of Maggie’s basic instincts — her basketball shooting motion came back to her even before she was able to stand up or walk again.”

Sometimes, Maggie’s family would even  move her to a chair where she would shoot a ball into a mini hoop.  After a few minutes of activity, she would return to a comatose state.

Maggie’s coma was a result of a condition called mycoplasma meningoencephalitis, a type of meningitis that can cause swelling in the brain.  According to The Daily, back in the fall of 2008, Maggie had complained to her parents about feeling ill and began suffering seizures when they took her to the hospital.  She later fell into a coma.

Maggie told The Daily she has no memories of the coma, including the time she spent shooting basketballs.

“Coming back to normal, I hear stories like that, like shooting the beach ball,” she said. “I played basketball my whole life, since third grade. I had the knowledge of playing and knowing what was going on in a game.”

Maggie, now a senior in high school, plays on the school varsity team and plans to attend Benedictine College in Kansas, where she hopes to earn a degree in special education.

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