The little girl who slept for 9 years woke up as a young woman

Ellen Sadler has been sleeping since she was 11 years old and when she woke up she was 20 years old.

"Sleeping Beauty" is a world-famous fairy tale for hundreds of years and we all know it is fictional and imaginary. The fact that people sleep for many years without being in a vegetative state has never been recognized by modern medicine, even when there have been similar examples.

Ellen was born in the early 19th century, the 12th child in an ordinary family. To help her parents, when she was 11 years old, she left home to work as a nanny in a nearby town. Away from her family and surrounded by strangers, Ellen begins to feel bad. She often has headaches, feels uncomfortable and is always sleepy. These symptoms gradually became so severe that she could not work normally.

In the village of Turville, England, in 1871, a real-life "sleeping girl" was recorded

Ellen had to return home and was taken to the hospital by her parents. Doctors cannot diagnose the disease because it is a strange symptom that has never been detected. After 18 weeks of trying to cure her, they still had to let Ellen leave the hospital even though she was not in any better condition.

After returning home, she had a severe headache and fell asleep. Ellen Sadler only felt worse and worse. And then, one day, she quietly lay down on the bed and fell asleep and when Ellen woke up it was 9 years later.

During this time, Ellen's mother was there to care for her. The “sleeping girl” is fed tea, milk and liquid food every day to maintain life. Ellen's weight and physical condition seriously declined.

Soon, the whole village knew about Ellen. People started coming to her house to watch. Gradually, news about the sleeping girl spread throughout the country. Ellen has become a reluctant celebrity. People from all over England flock to the grape village to see what someone who has been sleeping for many years looks like.

Doctors and reporters of course did not miss this strange case. A Daily Telegraph journalist described that the girl's body was very weak and her skin was too soft compared to a normal person. Her feet were cold and her lips were pale and blue. Ellen's breathing was almost imperceptible.

The strange thing is that this story has a happy ending. One day, Ellen Sadler woke up. She did not remember what happened and was extremely surprised when her family told her about her nine-year sleep. When she woke up, she was 20 years old but still had an extremely small and skinny body.

The Sadler family's house

Later, Ellen was noted to have a slightly slower physical development than normal people and her eyesight gradually worsened. But overall, the health of the "sleeping girl" is not bad. Ellen married and had 6 children. In 1911, Ellen Sadler died at nearly 50 years old.

Controversy surrounding the story

Ellen Sadler may have fallen into a coma or suffered from another illness unknown to 19th century science. It can be a chronic sleep disorder, where the patient experiences uncontrollable sleepiness. Ellen grew up in a large family and was accustomed to hard work from a young age. Some people speculate that her severe fatigue and lack of sleep caused her narcolepsy.

There is also a theory that the whole story about the "sleeping girl" of 9 years is just a scam by the Sadler family. During those 9 years, her family received charitable donations to take care of their daughter. For some reason, the mother did not allow the doctor to stay and diagnose Ellen for a long time. Some people rumored that Ellen's mother gave her sleeping pills every day to keep her daughter from waking up.

At that time, there were also people who claimed that they saw a conscious girl sitting by the window, meaning that Ellen was just an "actress". In addition, the girl's mother also refused the doctors' offer to undergo a medical examination at a hospital in London. But what the real answer is, future generations will never know because there is no official diagnosis from doctors.