Teenager’s Search for Answers After Mysterious Paralysis

Three months after fainting and waking up paralysed, a Canterbury teenager is still searching for answers as to what caused the episode.

angel Dagcutan has now regained mobility, but the episode has her concerned it may repeat in future.

Angel was only days away from her 18th birthday when she was struck by a flu-like illness in August.

She felt lethargic – even just moving felt draining, she said.

the illness also caused physical pain, especially in her head.

then she started hallucinating.

“My head started spinning, like it was going round and round,” Angel said.

“Then the mail van came to drop off some things. I saw the mail van but then I started seeing it turn into different things. I saw it as a white van, then into an ambulance.”

Then she fainted.

“I just remember black and hearing noises, and feeling pain on my head. But I wasn’t sure if it was my headache at the time or because I fell.”

Her older brother David Dagcutan said he heard the noise as Angel collapsed and rushed into the room.

“She was on the ground and my mum was assessing her and calling her name, which was quite a terrifying experience,” he said.

“I didn’t know what was happening and I thought it might be serious condition because its never happened before.”

David said his sister was unconscious for several minutes and he was worried she might die.

When she regained consciousness, she was unable to speak or move.

“She tried to speak but it was gurgled and all like jumbled,” David said.

Angel said she awoke to her brother performing CPR and she tried to tell him to stop as the pressure was painful, but the words would not come out.

“I wasn’t scared, I was just mainly confused as to why this was happening and what they were doing,” she said.

“Nothing made sense to me at the time.”

Her family called emergency services and an ambulance arrived, but that was not the end of the teenager’s troubles.

“When we were about to leave, the ambulance had a flat tire so they said we have to get the helicopter in,” she said.