'come to be' = 'come to'

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

"He is in a coma. Every bone in his face is broken. All his ribs are crushed. 
His brain is still swollen. If he comes to be, he may be blind. If he comes 
to be, he may have permanent brain damage." From an October 6, 2004 blog 
written by a (WM non-Hispanic) Central Florida teenager, age 17 at the time of the 
blog entry.

This use of "come to be" for "come to" is unknown to me. Does anyone know if 
this represents 

           •something new in American English?
           •a regionalism
           •merely a very emotionally distraught teenager's solecism?

The blog has been removed from the internet, and the story in today's ORLANDO 
SENTINEL (12-20-05, pA1, A14), though it is repeated on their website, gives 
the quote cited above in a box that is not repeated in the internet version of 
the story. It seems pretty authentic, however.