California car-crash survivor starts speaking with New Zealand accent after waking up from coma

In another bizarre case of Foreign Accent Syndrome, a Californian woman who was in a coma following a car crash started speaking with a New Zealand accent when she woke up after two weeks.

Summer Diaz, a 24-year-old from Los Angeles, was hit by an SUV while crossing the street on November 25 last year. She spent two weeks in an induced coma after the horrific bone-breaking accident, and woke up with FAS, a rare condition in which damage to the brain makes someone speak differently or with an accent that is different from their natural speaking style.

Diaz couldn't speak at all when she first woke up, and recalls feeling disoriented and confused. She told Jam Press, "I could hear people saying, 'You're at the hospital, Summer.' They asked me to say the alphabet and I knew quite a bit of sign language, so I signed it. I could not speak vocally when I woke up."

Diaz noticed a change when she started talking again. At first, she ignored it thinking it was because she pulled out her tubes when she woke up causing some damage, and started working with speech therapists during her rehab. However, her accent slowly became so strong that nurses started asking her where she was from. She initially developed a British accent, then French, and others before settling onto New Zealand, a country she has never visited.

"I had a very British accent, close to my boyfriend's for a while. I had a French one at one point and briefly, I was Russian. At the minute, it's settled on an Australian or New Zealand accent," she revealed, noting that people frequently assume she was born or grew up in Australia or New Zealand even though she has never been there.

FAS, which is more common in females, can result from a stroke, head trauma, migraines, or developmental problems. It is a rare disorder that has only been recorded 100 times since its discovery in 1907. It can last from days to a lifetime, but there are not many proposed treatments.

Diaz said that the disorder particularly affects her work which is caring for children with autism. She explained, "I often pronounce my name as sum-mah and sometimes they hear it as so-mah. I have had kids be confused if my accent switches the next day, so much to the point where they have asked where the other Summer went as they don't quite understand my condition."