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Friday, May 13, 2016

Tip Jar

Florida man wakes from 48-day coma, requests Taco Bell

Posted By Jessica Bryce Young on Fri, May 13, 2016 at 2:58 PM

click to enlarge

Photo by Tyler Chronister

This Week in Taco Bell, which is a thing that exists ("the internet’s foremost source of aggregated Taco Bell content") picked up from Reddit the story of Jake Booth, a Collier County sheriff's deputy who wound up in a coma in a Tampa hospital after complications from pneumonia.

He was out for 48 days*. When he awoke, his first recognizable words were “I want Taco Bell.”

“He actually said, out loud, ‘I want Taco Bell,'” Booth’s older brother Jason Schwartz told This Week in Taco Bell by phone. “That was the very first thing he said… When he starts getting into a full sentence, he can’t do it. But when he does one or two words at a time, you can definitely understand him. So when he asked for Taco Bell almost immediately, his friend Tyler definitely heard him say ‘Taco Bell.’ Tyler said, ‘Do you want Taco Bell?’ And Jake said, ‘Yes.'”

Booth's heartfelt plea could not be fulfilled for another 22 days, because he wasn't able to eat solid food. But when he finally got the thumbs-up from doctors, Booth celebrated with 8.5 crunchy tacos.

Booth's friend Tyler Chronister, who was there to hear the original request, was also there to witness The Crunchening, and shared the above heartwarming photo on Reddit. Booth now faces at least a year of physical therapy and thus, there is a GoFundMe page in his name; if you are moved by this tale of a fellow chalupa-hound, go drop some change.

*Sources vary as to whether it was 42 or 48 days, but it was a long damn time either way.

Tags: Taco Bell, Florida Man, tacos, Image