Mystery surrounding 'the girl who slept for 32 years'

On the island of Okno near the town of Monsteras, southern Sweden, a girl named Karolina Olsson went to sleep with a toothache, but woke up three decades later.

Karolina was born on October 29, 1861, the second of six children. Because Karolina was a girl, her mother believed that her most important duty was to take care of the family. So she taught her to read and write at home. Karolina did not start school until late fall 1875, when she was 14 years old.

On February 22, 1876, when she returned from school, she complained of a toothache and felt unwell. Her mother advised her to go to bed and that she would feel better the next morning. Apart from the toothache, the girl did not experience any other unusual symptoms. However, after falling asleep, she could not wake up.

Olsson on April 14, 1908, a few days after she woke up. Photo: Wikipedia — Olsson on April 14, 1908, a few days after she woke up. Photo: *Wikimedia Commons*

Karolina’s father was a poor fisherman and could not afford to hire a doctor. Instead, they relied mainly on the town midwife for advice. Karolina’s mother was very worried about her daughter, still trying to give her two glasses of milk a day. Eventually, sympathetic neighbors pooled their money to take her to a doctor. But the doctor was unable to wake Karolina and concluded that she was in a coma.

The doctor visited Karolina for more than a year, then wrote to the editor of a leading Scandinavian medical journal, calling on other experts to help find a cure for the lethargic state Karolina was experiencing.

In 1892, a doctor named Johan Emil Almbladh arrived in Monsteras and sent Karolina to the hospital for observation. During her stay, Karolina's condition did not change. She did not respond to needle pricks or touch. Treatment with electroconvulsive therapy was ineffective.

Doctors declared Karolina to have paralytic dementia, a serious neuropsychiatric disorder. However, there was little evidence that she actually suffered from the condition.

After a month in the hospital, Karolina was sent home. She was not seen by a doctor again until she woke up in 1908, 32 years after she fell asleep.

For more than three decades, Karolina had not been seen by a qualified psychiatrist. At that time, such specialists were rare.

After she woke up, Karolina was interviewed several times by the press, but no serious research was done on the circumstances of her illness or the conditions that led to her recovery. The only person who cared for Karolina was her mother, who regularly fed her two glasses of milk every day.

People have never heard Karolina utter a word in her sleep, but occasionally she can be heard crying or moaning.

When her mother died in 1905, Karolina began to cry in her sleep. These crying spells lasted for several days, but she did not wake up. Her father took over her daily care. However, Karolina's health continued to decline, and her face became gaunt.

On April 3, 1908, the maid entered the room and found Karolina crawling on the floor, crying. "Where is my mother?" she asked.

When her two younger brothers arrived home, she didn't recognize them. "They're not my brothers, they're still little kids," Karolina said.

In the early days, she was very weak, avoided light, answered questions hesitantly and had difficulty moving. However, Karolina still ate enthusiastically.

Two years after she woke up, a Stockholm doctor named Harald Froderstrom visited Karolina, spending a lot of time trying to figure out what really happened.

According to him, Karolina did not actually sleep for 32 years because the human body cannot endure such a long period of time without nutrition. Instead, he speculates that Karolina suffered from a form of mental disorder caused by a traumatic event. This caused her to seek sleep as a way to protect herself from the harsh realities of the world .

During this period, it appears that her mother was by her side, helping Karolina conceal the fact that she was not actually asleep at all. However, his theory does not answer the question of why no one saw Karolina awake during her hospital stay in 1982.

After her awakening, Karolina lived a fairly healthy life. Karolina died in 1950 at the age of 88 from an intracranial hemorrhage.

Vu Hoang (According to Amusing Planet )

Source link