Hutchinson ? For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin has been mostly oblivious to the world around her — the victim of a drunken driver who struck her down as she walked to her car. Today, after a remarkable recovery, she can talk again.

Scantlin’s father knows she will never fully recover, but her newfound ability to speak and her returning memories have given him his daughter back. For years, she could only blink her eyes — one blink for “no,” two blinks for “yes” — to respond to questions that no one knew for sure she understood.

“I am astonished how primal communication is. It is a key element of humanity,” Jim Scantlin said.

Sarah Scantlin was an 18-year-old college freshman on Sept. 22, 1984, when she was hit by a drunken driver as she walked to her car after celebrating with friends at a teen club.

The driver who struck Scantlin served six months in jail for driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident.

Scantlin still suffers constantly from the effects of the accident. She habitually crosses her arms across her chest, her fists clenched under her chin. Her legs constantly spasm and thrash.

But on Saturday, she was a debutante of sorts as her thrilled family had an open house to introduce her to nearly 200 of her friends, family and media who gathered at the nursing home to see her.

Dressed in a blue warm-up suit, Sarah mostly answered questions in a single word.

Is she happy she can talk? “Yeah,” she replied.

Sarah Scantlin, left, looks up at her mother, Betsy Scantlin, during a reception for Sarah on Saturday at Golden Plains Health Care Center in Hutchinson. Sarah, unable to talk since she was hit by a drunken driver 20 years ago, has begun to regain her memory and form words.

And what does she tell her parents when they leave, someone else prompted. “I love you,” she said.

Family members say they are at times surprised now that she is talking about how much she grasped of life from the news and soap operas.

Her brother, named Jim like his father, asked whether she knew what a CD was. Sarah said she knew it had music on it.

But when he asked her how old she was, Sarah guessed she was 22. When her brother gently told her she was 38 years old now, she just stared silently back at him. The nurses say she thinks it is still the 1980s.

Scantlin started talking in mid-January but asked staff members not to tell her parents until Valentine’s Day to surprise them, Trammell said. But last week she could not wait any longer to talk to them.

Scantlin’s doctor, Bradley Scheel, said physicians were not sure why she suddenly began talking but believed critical pathways in the brain may have regenerated.