Freshman on road to recovery

College freshman Jae Lee, who was hit by a car earlier this month, is recovering quickly, according to his friends. Lee, who underwent emergency brain surgery several hours after the accident, was in a coma until this past Saturday morning. Since then, his condition has improved daily. "He is recovering at an unbelievable rate," Wharton sophomore Sang Kim said last night. "He is out of Intensive Care and in a regular patient room." According to Kim, Lee began talking on Sunday and is now going through speech therapy. While Lee does not remember everything, "he remembers a lot of things from when he was a child" and "seems to remember most of the things that have happened since he woke up from the coma," Kim said. "He knows who he is and who all of his friends are," Kim said. "He knows that he is hurt from the accident but only because people have told him that." While Lee appears to be progressing rapidly, Kim explained that no long-term prognoses have been made. "They haven't been able to do any specific evaluation right now," Kim said. "They need a little more time before they can do any more tests." Lee's family and friends have been spending a lot of time at the hospital, according to Kim. "Many of his friends are visiting him frequently," Kim said. "His brother and his parents are always here." Lee's roommate, College freshman Richard Kim, said last night that Lee's recovery "is a miracle." "I was able to talk with him," he said. "They say he can read and write." "I think people expected the worst," he said. "He really pulled through. His parents are really excited." Director of the University's Head Injury Research Center Thomas Gennarelli performed Lee's emergency surgery after the accident. According to one of Gennarelli's residents, Lee has been recovering since the surgery, which stabilized the swelling of his brain following the accident.