Taylor Swift song helps Kansas City woman wake up from week-long coma

(Angela Fisher family, KMBC via CNN Newsource 08 Mar 24)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KMBC) — Never underestimate the power of music — and definitely don’t underestimate Taylor Swift.

That’s the lesson a Kansas City family living in the Northland learned after a Taylor Swift song helped bring a family member back from a week-long coma.

Kansas City’s Angela Fisher went to the hospital at the end of January for a colon dissection. Unfortunately, after being rushed into an emergency surgery, she never woke up.

“Everyone tells me that I almost died,” Fisher said, thinking back to the harrowing incident several months later.

The incident is difficult for Fisher to revisit. For nearly seven days, Fisher lay motionless in a coma.

That is until an ICU nurse had a suggestion.

“Make some noises do something,” Brenda Varner, Fisher’s sister, said recalling the nurse’s advice.

The noise Fisher’s sister and daughter decided to make? One of Taylor Swift’s biggest hits.

“We were like, okay, maybe we should start singing,” Amanda Fisher, Angela Fisher’s daughter, remembered.

Yup, the Fisher’s concerned family started belting out Taylor Swift’s song ‘Shake It Off’ over and over, louder and louder next to her hospital bed.

“She had a tear,” Verner said.

It was the first sign that the song had awoken Fisher from her nearly week-long coma.

“It was like she was just kind of struggling barely, but we could tell that it seemed like she was hearing us,” Verner said.

After the tear came a blink and the road to recovery.

Fisher says she’s grateful to her family, God and the resourceful ICU nurse that inspired her sister and daughter.

“When the doctors gave up on me and told my family to tell me goodbye, she worked and worked and worked, and here I am because of her,” Fisher said.

Fisher now has a song that will be stuck in her head forever.

“Well Shake It Off is really working well for me,” Fisher said with a laugh.

Fisher has now been out of the hospital for about two weeks and has about six more weeks remaining in her recovery plan.

It’s just one more item in a long line of good karma for Kansas City’s favorite girlfriend.