Jake Booth, a 35-year-old Army vet and former Sheriff’s deputy in Collier County, Fla., was hospitalized in February with a bad case of bronchitis that turned into double pneumonia. Days later, he suffered a heart attack and was put in a medically-induced coma.
On April 3, after 48 days, Booth awoke.
His first words? “I want Taco Bell.”
“He actually said, out loud, ‘I want Taco Bell,” Booth’s brother, Jason Schwartz, told the USA Today’s For The Win. “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.'”
Not only was Booth cognizant enough to request Mexican fast food, but he also knew who he was and recognized his wife, his 6-year-old daughter, Eva, and 1-year-old son, Aiden.
Unfortunately, it would be 22 more days until Booth was strong enough to eat solid food. He celebrated by chowing down on 8 1/2 Crunchy Tacos.
“We’d all been waiting an entire month for him to eat those tacos,” Schwartz said. “It was symbolic of the tnire thing — more of a metaphor of him having woken up and being given a second chance at life.”
Schwartz created a GoFundMe page to raise money for Booth and his family. The page has currently raised $13,000 of its $50,000 goal.