A public campaign has been started to discover the identity of a woman suffering from amnesia who was found in California, but has no idea who she is or where she came from.
The woman, known currently as Sam, speaks with a slight Australian accent, speaks English and some French and says she has memories of life in Hawaii and Australia. She is described as approximately 50 years old, 5’7” and with blonde highlighted hair and brown eyes.
Sam is suffering from stage-three ovarian cancer and doctors have told her this could be the root of her amnesia. Doctors have told Sam that her chances of surviving the disease are slim.
People looking to reunite Sam with her home have started a Facebook page to provide information about her situation. Interpol have also issued an alert.
"The amnesia I have is called retro amnesia and doctors have seen this before with the kind of antibodies that were found on the volleyball sized tumor that was on my ovary,” Sam said on the Facebook page.
“The doctors said it could have been growing for 5 years causing me to be forgetful of things.”
Fire-fighters found Sam in California on February 1. She was barely conscious and in a serious condition when she was found on a street corner. Paramedics rushed to hospital and she remained in intensive care for several days. Since then there have been some sparse memories of her life before February.
“Both Australia and Hawaii are extremely familiar to me,” Sam said.
“I remember having breakky almost every morning at the organic restaurant across from the ocean in Cottelsoe Beach outside Perth, and dining for months at the restaurants in Byron Bay,” she said.
“I just feel like there’s a thick fog over my mind, my memory, over my brain that I can’t see through,” she told NBC 7 news.
“I can’t remember anything. How I got here? I didn’t have anything on me, no jewellery, no purse, nothing.”
On the Facebook page Sam says: “since I’ve been in the hospital I have been here alone ... I have had no family or friends here.
"However, clergy and doctors and nurses and other patients whom I met have all become friends.
“My prognosis is not good and I pray my family will be found soon.”
