Living Another Life in a Coma
Keenan Acton described living a "different life" while unconscious, with some memories becoming reality.
"It wasn’t a dream. I was watching it happen... living another life."
Keenan Acton, 26, spent over four weeks in a coma after collapsing during a Hyrox fitness competition in September 2024.
More than 18 months later, the father of two is still trying to understand the life he says he lived while unconscious, including witnessing his wife give birth to twins.
Unexpectedly, his wife Olivia is now pregnant with twins.
Keenan was placed in a medically induced coma for over four weeks.
Keenan, a gym owner from the Orsedd near Wrexham, has few memories from the day he collapsed.
Others have helped fill in the gaps in his memory.
"My wife was watching us and waiting for us to talk and I collapsed and had a seizure," he said.
He was taken to a hospital in Birmingham, where Olivia was informed that his brain had swollen and several organs were failing. He was placed in a medically induced coma.
Keenan suffered from rhabdomyolysis, a potentially life-threatening condition that can arise from overtraining.
He was taken out of the coma after three weeks, but four days later suffered a cardiac arrest.
He was resuscitated and put back into a coma for a further eight days. During this time, doctors told Olivia that he was at risk of dying.
"The hardest part was what everyone else had to go through..."
"On one occasion, Olivia was told I only had 24 hours left."
Keenan and Olivia already have two sons - Roman, aged five, and River, aged four.
When he came out of the second coma, Keenan believed that what he saw while unconscious had actually happened.
"One of the first things I said to Liv after waking up was 'how are the babies?'"
This confused his wife, who asked if he was referring to their young sons, Roman and River.
"I was starting to get frustrated... I thought we had told everyone on social media."
He was disappointed to learn he was not the father of twins.
"I felt like a part of me was missing."
Experiences During the Coma
Describing his experiences while in the coma, Keenan emphasizes that it did not feel like a dream.
"It was real. I was watching it happen, doing it, living it."
He recalls the birth of the twins while on holiday, then returning home "to a lovely big house with a glass front by the water, and we had four children."
Keenan says his rhabdomyolysis and coma experience changed his outlook on life.
He also has "dark and unpleasant" memories, including "being forced to do unpleasant things."
One example was being "moved to the middle of nowhere and put in a cabin" where a training machine had to be used continuously to keep him alive.
In the memory, a watch on his wrist "counted down from eight days."
After waking and sharing the memory with friends, he said: "That was the length of your second coma."
'Our Minds Always Create a Narrative'
During a medically induced coma, sedatives are used to render a patient unconscious—a step to protect the brain from traumatic injury.
Many intensive care patients report vivid dreams during coma, and studies in Greece and Australia have investigated this phenomenon.
Keenan wanted to understand more about his memories while in the coma, so the BBC arranged for him to meet clinical psychologist Pieter du Toit, clinical director of the charity Brainkind.
"When you were in the medically induced coma, your brain was not switched off," he explained.
"It wasn’t a case of a switch being turned off. Quite a lot was going on."
Keenan asked why he had memories of having twins and moving house.
"Our dreams and coma experiences, or the ones we remember, are things that are important to us," said Pieter du Toit.
"Our minds always create a narrative, a story, a whole."
In his view, Keenan’s memory of the cabin shows how the brain "is metaphorically and literally a meaning-making machine."
It is likely, he added, that Keenan’s brain responded to the hospital experience by creating a scene related to loneliness, fighting to survive, and the possibility of death.
The twins are expected to arrive at the end of June.
In December 2024, Keenan left the hospital using a walking frame. Weeks later, he was back in the gym.
Eight months after leaving hospital, he married Olivia, who is now pregnant. She is expected to give birth in June.
A scan revealed there were two babies on the way, not one, "matching what I saw in the coma," Keenan said.
Keenan says there is no family history of twins and the pregnancy is natural.
"It’s too much of a coincidence not to think my coma was a glimpse into the future," he said.
"You have to experience it to believe it."
Pieter du Toit said science would suggest it is "most likely a coincidence," but added that science cannot explain everything.
"There are limitations... it’s about what makes sense to the person, what helps, rather than what is correct."
Life Better Than Before
Since his rhabdomyolysis, Keenan has sold part of his business and prioritizes being with his family.
"Life for me and the family is better than before," he said.
"I’m not rushing wildly, full of stress. I see my children having breakfast, Dad home to read a bedtime story and bath time."
"I don’t want to call what happened a hidden blessing because it wasn’t a blessing to anyone, and everyone went through hell."
Physically, he cannot do what he used to, but he has realized some things in life are more important.
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