Gary French Dockery (October 15, 1953 – April 15, 1997) was an American police officer in Walden, Tennessee.
In 1996, he emerged from the coma and started talking enthusiastically, recognizing friends and recalling events from past years.
His shooter, Samuel Frank Downey, then aged 68, had made the call falsely reporting a disturbance and then shot Dockery at point blank range.
Dockery slipped into what doctors called a persistent vegetative state, unable to communicate except with occasional eye blinks and groans, indicating that part of his brain was still working.
Dockery was transported from his nursing home to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he was pronounced dead at 9:52 a.m.[5]