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Despite Bobby Brown’s claim, Bobbi Kristina isn’t ‘awake,’ source says

Posted at 9:29 PM, Apr 20, 2015
and last updated 2015-04-20 21:30:49-04

A source with knowledge of the condition of Bobbi Kristina Brown tells CNN that the 22-year-old daughter of Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston remains in the same neurological state that she has been in for over 12 weeks.

Although Bobbi Kristina Brown is not in a coma or sedated, she does not respond to visitors — she does not respond to familiar voices, and her eyes do not follow a person around the room — and has a tracheostomy in her throat, the source told CNN.

On Saturday, father Bobby Brown said at a concert that she was “awake.”

“I can say today, Bobbi is awake,” Brown told the audience at Dallas’ Verizon Theatre. “She’s watching me.”

The audience cheered.

In a statement Monday, an attorney for the Brown family said Bobbi Kristina Brown’s condition has improved, but that the kind of life she will lead remains to be seen.

“Doctors have indicated that she will have a long life,” attorney Christopher Brown said. “However, Bobbi Kristina is presently embarking on a rehabilitation process and the quality of her life will not be known for years to come.”

Bobby Brown was in an “emotional state” on stage when he made the remarks about his daughter being awake, according to the statement.

“She has made it out of ICU, opened her eyes, and started a rehabilitation that will be long and hard,” Bobby Brown’s wife, Alicia Etheredge-Brown, said.

Bobbi Kristina Brown was found unresponsive in a bathtub at her home in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell, Georgia, on January 31. The extent of her injuries is not known.

She was placed in a medically induced coma in early February.

That month, doctors at Emory University Hospital removed her breathing tube, allowing Brown to be ventilated through a hole in her throat.

At the time, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said the procedure suggested that she would need to be on such support for “weeks and months to come.”

After being treated at an Atlanta-area hospital for several weeks, she was moved to a rehabilitation facility in mid-March, a source close to the family told CNN at the time.

Police have said they are treating Brown’s case as a criminal investigation.

Whitney Houston died in 2012. She was also found in a bathtub. A coroner ruled her death an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors.