Wake-up call: Minnesota man emerges from coma playing air guitar to Coldplay in his hospital bed

Dylan Bode had been in a coma for three days when caregivers piped Coldplay music into his hospital room. Nobody knew if his cardiac arrest had caused irreversible brain damage or whether he would survive, but they figured that songs by his favorite rock band could at least offer comfort.

Then the unexpected happened.

Bode’s fingers started moving, playing piano in coordination with Coldplay’s hit song, “Yellow,” according to his husband, Aaron. By the time the playlist reached “Fix You,” Bode was showing signs of consciousness and playing air guitar in his bed. Doctors and nurses poured into the intensive care unit at HCMC Medical Center in Minneapolis.

“I think we had Coldplay playing for like a full day” before he reacted, said Dr. Sydney Hansen, the intensivist who treated Bode. “The vibes were very good in his room.”

Bode emerged from his four-day coma March 22. The 32-year-old Minneapolis man credits the music for him regaining consciousness after his heart had stopped beating for five minutes.

[More: Songs that were playing when people woke from comas]

That Coldplay would be the elixir is unsurprising. The band has won seven Grammy awards and sold more than 100 million records. Their harmonies and optimistic lyrics really clicked with Bode when he was 8, inspiring him as a child in Hawaii to sing and play the piano and guitar.

The music later brought comfort to Bode, who said he endured rejection from his church community after he turned 18 and disclosed that he was gay.

“[Coldplay] dropped their most important music at the right time” in my life, he said.

How much the music played a role in his awakening is unclear. Studies have found that familiar songs and voices can get through to patients in comas or prolonged episodes of unconsciousness. But it’s not certain if music has a therapeutic benefit.

Imaging scans have shown improved blood flow and brain wave patterns in coma patients after they have been exposed to music and other external stimuli, said Dr. Jan Claassen, a critical care neurologist at Columbia University in New York.

Those patients tend to have better recoveries, said Claassen, one of the nation’s leading researchers on brain activity in comatose patients.

But it’s possible that music is merely helping clinicians to identify patients who have favorable recovery odds, rather than helping the patients themselves.

“Music therapy to support recovery is also being investigated, but to date the evidence is inconclusive,” Claassen said.

HCMC’s Hansen said she tries to reach patients like Bode anyway, by talking with them and filling their rooms with music and things they love.

“It’s my medical opinion ... that it can be helpful and certainly can’t be harmful,” she said. “So we do it.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about what brains can perceive when they are sedated or in a coma. We try to talk with people and interact with people as if they can hear us, just in case.”

Toxicology reports revealed Bode’s heart stopped after he had been poisoned, apparently when a stranger slipped an illicit drug into a drink he ordered at a bar, he said. Complications from the poisoning led to his lungs filling with dense fluid, so Bode was medically sedated to keep him in his coma until they cleared up.

Nobody knew if he would revive on his own until he started responding to the music.

Bode credits the medics, doctors and nurses for saving him, but he said he was so convinced by the power of the music that he decided to thank Coldplay by attending a concert. Trouble was, by the time Bode was strong enough to go in November, Coldplay only had one last scheduled stop in its 2024 tour — New Zealand. Bode and Aaron booked flights to Auckland and tickets to all three shows there.

Bode even made a sign that read, “Your music woke me up from a coma! Can we sing about this magic together?” and wrapped it in clear packaging tape because it was pouring rain on the night of the second concert.

Even standing close to the stage, Bode didn’t expect to get attention. He said a lot of people bring signs to Coldplay shows to share how the music affects them. But midway through the show, lead singer Chris Martin invited him on stage.

“Is this a true story? For real? For real?” Martin asked Bode as they sat on a piano bench. “I’ve never, ever seen a sign like this in my life.”

Martin had tied Bode’s shoe when he climbed on stage, and Bode said that humble act put him at ease with his pop idol. Bode sang harmony with Martin to the song “Magic,” like he had so many times before to recordings of the song.

“It didn’t feel too scary,” Bode said of singing on stage with Martin. “It was like a friend I’ve known my whole life.”

Bode is a little sheepish that “Yellow” was playing when he first showed signs of consciousness. The song is overplayed and not his favorite, he said, but now it has been immortalized in his life.

The concert experience motivated Bode to quit his job in home financing next year and pursue a lifelong dream of writing and performing music. Looking back, he wonders why the near-death experience itself didn’t motivate this change. Waking from the coma was only one step, it turned out.

In his first conscious moments, Bode wondered if he was dead because the room was bright and he was surrounded by his parents, who live in Maui. Then came pain; chest compressions had restarted his heart and saved his live, but also cracked some ribs.

Bode concentrated on physical therapy for weeks after his hospitalization, determined to get fit and back to work full time so he could pay down his medical bills. He couldn’t look at any video screens for a month while he dealt with concussion symptoms from his collapse, so once again, music played a pivotal role.

His odds for recovery were better because Bode is younger and paramedics responded quickly and got his heart beating again. Even so, Hansen said, “a case like Dylan’s, where he was so incredibly sick on day one and then got so much better, thanks to Coldplay, on day three, is remarkable.”

The likelihood of recovering from a coma depends on the patients’ injuries and other factors, but Claassen said clinicians should still communicate with patients to see if it helps. He published results in August of an imaging study that showed 1 in 4 patients who are unresponsive after brain injuries actually have signs of hidden consciousness.

Familiar voices could help as well. Chicago researchers in 2015 found coma patients recovered consciousness significantly faster after loved ones repeatedly verbalized familiar stories to them.

Bode’s entire journey gives him source material for his songwriting — from the shocking cause of his heart stoppage to his recovery and brief stardom. He said he wants to find his own voice and style, distinct from Coldplay, and yet he will likely share the band’s optimistic lyrics as he enjoys what he considers a second chance at life.

“Going on a walk, sometimes it just catches me still,” Bode said, “like I’m in a forest on a hike, and I just feel so grateful.”