Man Emerges From Coma a Compulsive Artist

(CBS)  Tommy McHugh doesn't paint because he wants to. He paints because he can't stop.

McHugh, 60, never particularly wanted to be an artist, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips. In fact, it never occurred to him in the rough Liverpool, England street life he'd been living as a handyman and occasional street fighter.

Then, says Phillips, McHugh, felt a terrible pain in his head from a double brain aneurysm - leaking blood vessels that almost killed him.

When he came out of the coma a week later, his whole life had changed. He had become an irrepressible artist.

"I can only live it one day at a time," McHugh told CBS News. "So I work happily trying to complete as much as I can."

McHugh now says a walk into his living room is like a walk into his brain.

For up to 18 hours a day, he paints. No surface in his house is safe.

The theory, Phillips points out, is that the aneurisms altered the temporal lobes of his brain - the parts that contribute to visual processing - the artistic bits.

His work now fills up a gallery, and he's decided to use his fame to encourage over would-be artists by providing space for their work to be displayed. "There's a lot of other people around Britain and the world who are fighting individual loneliness and isolation (from) illness," McHugh says.

It took a near-death experience to change McHugh's life, Phillips observes. Now, he's a walking medical mystery, trying to prove art can be an outlet for others the way it's been for him.

Dr. Alice Flaherty, a neurologist who's worked with and studied McHugh, told "Early Show Saturday Edition" co-anchor Erica Hill it's "very rare" that something like what happened to McHugh occurs, "especially in this way, where things get better. But, in Tommy's case, I think two things went on. He got more emotional about everything, cared more about a lot of things, and also a little dis-inhibited.

"Well, he's pretty straightforward and says this wasn't a talent that was hidden. (He says) 'I had no interest in art.' And I have it believe him."

Flaherty says when McHugh first began talking after emerging from the coma, he was writing poetry and speaking "in rhyme for months. He just couldn't stop rhyming."

Asked by Hill whether McHugh's case could show we all have hidden talents somewhere inside, Flaherty downplayed the notion, saying, "I wouldn't want to rule it out, but I think most people who have injuries like him get a lot worse and not better."

But Flaherty said she has seen similar cases and, "They all get more emotional. Of the other patients I know, some of them had interest in art or in music before and some of them clearly didn't and had to learn it as they go. But all of them became me emotional."



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[erb0087]

"Man Emerges From Coma a Compulsive Artist"

That headline reminds me of the old joke:

Patient: "Doctor, will I be able to play the piano after the operation ?"

Doctor: "Of course you will."

Patient: "That's great, because I can't now."

[rockcutr]

It is no wonder ya gotta kill some of the stupid parts of your brain to discover the truely amazing parts. Ok, maybe kill is harsh...Learning to overcome the mind chatter and actually focus for a legnth of time can awaken the right brain- the creative side. Left handed people think mostly in the right brain. Right handed people think in the left side or the logic side. Very little art here. numbers and graphs and the like.
True art is said to come from the heart. In this case to be out of your mind and in your heart would be a good thing. After all the physical heart actually has 70,000 neurons or brain cells...Hmmmmm what's up with that. How is it you can be brain dead and still be alive. Stop the heart and ya die. Where is the source of power? Why isn't everyone living in the heart?

[wheresmycountry]

The only problem is that his art is crap.

[edgy44]

You have to see it in person, and not the limited computer browser view. Saying art is crap, is like saying your mother spent her whole life in the bathroom and flushing. I'm sure there were good and bad parts about her, and the good parts may even have been wonderful.

[KeithDrippingSprings]

In the eye of the beholder

[bajajohn1]

What a weired story. Is there a message this fellow is trying to convey to the world?

[pragmatist1]

Interesting, to say the least. However, the lead in to this segment on the program was that he was a "genius". Judging from the his finished "art", I'd hardly call this man's art the result of his being a genius. Even I can paint and draw like this and I definitely don't consider myself a genius by any stretch of the imagination. And for him to remain inside his apartment painting for sometimes eighteen hours a day is definitely demonstrating an abnormality, like a compulsive/obsessive behavior disorder. What he's doing isn't normal behavior.

[stychokiller]

Having a brain aneurysm is NOT normal either, get a grip! I wouldn't mind having more motivation to create art, good bad or indifferent -- besides, have you seen what passes for modern art in galleries these days??