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Monica Lierhaus Details Coma and Grueling Rehab After Failed 2009 Brain Surgery in New Podcast

She characterizes the complication as rare bad luck despite living with permanent balance damage.

Overview

  • In an interview on Robin Gosens' podcast, Lierhaus recounts how an aneurysm ruptured during surgery in January 2009, leading doctors to tell her family to say goodbye.
  • She says she spent about four months in an artificial coma and woke with profound deficits, describing herself as unable to sit, stand, walk or swallow.
  • Lierhaus underwent roughly eight months of rehabilitation at a clinic on Lake Constance, setting the goal to leave on her own feet and relearning speech and movement.
  • She reports lasting impairments, especially a severely damaged sense of balance that prevents her from using stairs without a handrail and is not expected to recover.
  • Describing stigma and paparazzi after rehab, she cites a 2011 Goldene Kamera appearance to reclaim control, remains active with RTL, and rejects blaming the surgeon, calling the outcome extremely rare.