Shane and Colt Dockery were little boys when their father, a police officer, was shot in the head and lapsed into a comalike state that lasted for 7 1/2 years.
During Gary Dockery's silent life in a nursing home, they prayed that one day he would speak to them. Last week, he did.Colt, now 12, said no one told him his father had started speaking again. They wanted it to be a surprise.
"My mom told me to go over and talk to him," Colt said in an interview Saturday. "I said, `Hey, Daddy,' and he said, `How you doin', Colt?' I said, `I love you, Daddy,' and he said he loved me."
"I was happy and I jumped all over the room because he spoke to me."
Dockery was alert but not speaking Saturday. Since surgery Thursday to remove fluid from his lungs, Dockery had responded to family members only by moving his eyes and squeezing their hands. He was moving his arms and legs on command and breathing on his own.
Shane, now nearly 20, said his first question to his father Monday was if he knew who he was. Dockery answered: "My son."
Shane then quizzed him about the names of his horses, the color of his jeep, his memories about an annual all-male winter camping trip.
They said Dockery didn't understand why they were taller and older, but he never asked how much time had passed. His sons were 5 and 12 when he lost consciousness.
Dockery, 42, was taken from his nursing home to Parkridge Medical Center in Chattanooga on Feb. 11, dying of pneumonia. The family was given the choice of letting the pneumonia kill him or taking a chance on surgery.
That night, said the officer's ex-wife, Vicky Cox, Colt cried in his stepfather's arms after being told Dockery might not survive. They prayed together that he would be OK.
Cox had divorced Dockery shortly before the shooting.
The family was leaning toward letting nature take its course when Dockery went on an 18-hour talking spree Monday, Shane said.
"It gave us hope that he'd be able to come home with us again someday," he said.
Dr. James Folkening, Dockery's physician, said Dockery's lung hadn't improved as much as doctors had hoped, but they remain optimistic.
Folkening said Dockery lingered over the years in a type of vegetative state rather than a coma. A coma is short-term and the patient is unconscious with eyes closed. After two to four weeks, if the patient doesn't die or recover, the eyes open but the person remains unconscious.
As far as the family can tell, Dockery doesn't remember the shooting in 1988 or working for the Walden police department.
"We try not to say anything about the accident because we don't want him shutting back down on us or going into depression," Shane said.
He said he asked his father if he knew how long he'd been in the nursing home.
"He said, `not long,' whatever that means to him, we don't know."
He said his father's voice was similar to what he remembered, but more sluggish.
Shane, who described his father as his best friend, said he couldn't choose a favorite memory of Dockery before the shooting because "every minute I was with him was my favorite."
The first couple of years Dockery was in the nursing home, Shane said he couldn't visit often because it made him so sad. Eventually, however, he started visiting once a week, grooming him and talking to him.