In most cases a sedated person can hear you although they will not be able to talk because they are under sedation.
I've heard that some doctors will talk to a sedated person and they will sometimes move their head to answer the doctor.
So in that case that sedated person was able to hear the doctor talk to them.
But if the person is under heavy sedation or is on life support then they may be able to hear you as long as their hearing is still working.
I've visited people in the hospital on life support and talked to them and they did move their eyes a bit like they heard me.
So if someone is on life support it's still good to talk to them even though they cannot respond verbally and it could be that they have the ability to hear you.
Anesthesia does have the potential to damage your lungs if you're given too much anesthesia or you have other lung issues.
The anesthesia is pretty safe though and most times a persons lungs are just fine as well as the persons health after they have been given anesthesia.
Thousands of people go under anesthesia sedation and most of those patients who are given anesthesia come out just fine with healthy lungs.
So the anesthesia can damage a persons lungs but it's rare that it does.
The time it takes to wake up from sedation can vary from person to person and how sedated you are.
However when you are ready to be awoken from sedation the doctor will give you medicine to reverse the sedation.
So you might begin waking up from sedation within a few minutes and then you might not wake up until 10 to 20 minutes later or you might even still be under sedation for as long as 45 minutes.
The process of waking up after sedation can be a slow process but the patient should eventually wake up and they will likely be groggy and tired still for an hour or so afterwards.
When the surgery or other procedure is done and it's okay for you to wake up from the sedation from anesthesia the doctors will give you medication that reverses the anesthesia.
So the medicine then interacts with the anesthesia causing the anesthesia to become ineffective and then the anesthesia wears off.
Then you gradually wake up as the anesthesia wears off your system.
Some people have woken up from anesthesia when they didn't get enough anesthesia given to them so the doctor has to make sure you're given enough anesthesia but not too much to cause any other health issues or death.
And the doctor has to make sure they give you the proper dose of the medicine to wake you up from anesthesia.