Swedish-Speaking Amnesiac Starts His New Life

Six months after waking up in a Palm Springs hospital with Transient Global Amnesia—speaking only Swedish with no recollection of his past—US Navy vet Michael Boatwright has landed back in Sweden, where he lived on and off for 20 years, the AP reports. With "no alternatives to homelessness," California's Riverside County Department of Mental Health paid for Boatwright's one-way ticket to the country where he now hopes to rebuild a life with the help of a woman he dated in the mid-1980s—even though he doesn't remember her, USA Today reports.

"Michael asked me, 'Why are you doing this for me?' Because I know Michael would have done the same thing for me," Ewa Espling told CNN. "This is a very nice man with a very big heart." And though Boatwright will have a tough time overcoming what he calls "probably the worst thing you could ever go through" after death, he's optimistic, and hopes to land a job as a tennis instructor. "I just want to be able to live a normal life and hopefully get my memory back," he said through a translator. On his feelings for Espling: "I feel warm on the inside." (More amnesia stories.)