I Love That This Guy's First Words After Waking Up From A 48-Day Coma Were "I Want Taco Bell"
FTW- In February, Jake Booth, a 35-year-old Army vet and former Sheriff’s deputy in Collier County, Fla., came down with a case of bronchitis. Antibiotics helped, but after Booth quit taking his pills a few days early, the bronchitis turned into double pnemonia. While hospitalized for treatment, Booth suffered a heart attack and fell into a coma. He had to be airlifted to Tampa General Hospital for more extensive treatment. His family did not know if he would ever wake up, or how much damage his brain endured from a loss of oxygen.
But after 48 days in a coma, Jake woke up. When he did, to the surprise of his family and his neurologists, he knew who he was, understood where he was and recognized his 6-year-old daughter, Eva, and his 1-year-old son, Aiden. He struggled to speak — and still struggles to speak — due to the lingering effects of intubation and a tracheotomy, but as soon as he could form sounds into words, he made a request. “I want Taco Bell,” Jake said.
“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 fried Tyler definitely heard him say ‘Taco Bell.’ Tyler said, ‘Do you want Taco Bell?’ And Jake said, ‘Yes.’” It would be 22 more days before Booth could eat solid food, a total of 70 days between real meals. But just last week, one day after doctors cleared him to eat, Jake got his wish in the form of 8 1/2 Crunchy Tacos.
Now THAT is how you pay true respect to a culinary legend like Taco Bell. Fuck asking about how your wife and kids are doing when you wake up from a coma. Instead, tell the first person you see to get their ass South of the Border and load up on some food you will regret in an hour. I imagine right before Jake’s life got flipped turned upside down, he had the itch that all of us have gotten for a fast food joint. I mean they made an entire movie about that itch in Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle. When you are sick with something like bronchitis, you just want to feel happy. And not many things in the world will make you feel better than an orgy of cheap meat, cheese, and tortillas.
I also can’t imagine what those 22 days of being awake but not being able to eat solid food were like. I think Jesus spent 40 days in the desert fasting with the devil tempting him. While I love my boy JC, that story doesn’t have shit on Jake Booth. You cannot compare 40 days of not eating figs and whatever shitty Middle Eastern food was around 2,000 years ago to dreaming of Taco Bell as you are forced to shove nothing but hospital Jell-O down your throat for three weeks.
That being said, ordering a bunch of regular tacos is such a weak ass order. That’s an order from the 1980s or something. Tacos are basically a side dish at Taco Bell these days. He should have had his first words be “Yo quiero Taco Bell” like that chihuahua to really bring us all back to the good old days. Jesus Jake, how did you not go with a Chalupa, Gordita, or Crunchwrap? Or at least a quesadilla to mix things up a bit. And if you absolutely had to go with tacos, why didn’t you order Doritos Locos tacos? Decision-making like this is what knocked him into that coma in the first place.
And if you are recovering in a hospital bed for weeks, I think you should avoid any of the Taco Bell items with ground beef. That is the quickest way to Mud Butt City in a hospital bathroom with a broken down body. Jakey made a big mistakey and should have stuck strictly to chicken or steak options. While both will still take him to Mud Butt City, it will be the local instead of the express. Jake gets an A for effort, but a C+ for execution.