Martin Pistorius was a fun-loving 12-year-old boy. He lived with his parents in South Africa and his biggest wish was to become an electrician.
But in January 1988, he came home with a sore throat and never returned to school. It was a mysterious disease that slowly crippled him. He became weaker and weaker, could barely walk until he finally became completely unresponsive. He was in a virtual coma but the doctors couldn’t diagnose what had caused it. All the doctors could say was that he had contracted some kind of a degenerative neurological disorder.
His parents, Joan and Rodney, were desperate especially since they were told that there was no hope for Martin and were advised to put him into an institution and let his illness run its course.
At the age of 14 it was decided that he should spend his days in a care centre and be taken home each night. Years passed with Martin feeling like he was lost in a dark, unseeing world. He was almost dead; his personality and everything that defined him lost. He was like an empty shell, unaware of anything around him.
At night, Martin's father would wake up every two hours to turn his son so that he didn't get bedsores. During the day they would take him to a nursing home.
But what no one realized was that Martin was not dying at all; his body was not empty; and his mind was not absent. Quite the contrary: one day he started to come back to life, slowly becoming aware of his surroundings, while not quite fully understanding what had happened to him. Thoughts began rushing back into his mind that he never considered voicing and he didn't realize the body he saw jerking was his own. His body moved completely independently of his mind. And no one from the outside noticed that all this was going on inside of him.
The turning point came when his mother looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. Martin wished so desperately that he could reassure her, stand up from his wheelchair and leave behind the shell of a body that had caused so much pain. "You must die," she said slowly, “I hope you die.”
This remark, as horrible as it was for Martin, changed everything. As time passed, it became clear to him that he had to shed his negative thoughts and begin to think positively. He had to regain control over his body and his life. He learned to understand his mother's desperation and forgive what she had said. She didn't have the slightest idea that Martin was actually present. She only saw her half-dead son lying in bed and had to live each day with such a cruel parody of the once healthy child she had loved so much. Every time she looked at him she could see only the ghost boy he’d left behind.
But Martin gradually became aware of each day and each hour in it. He learned to read time using the position of the sun and reacted to tests by recognizing objects and following them with his eyes. His doctors were suddenly hit by the fact that brain activity was going on. He became stronger, could sit in a wheelchair and began to find his way back into life. Then the unbelievable happened, which stunned everyone for years: his parents bought him a computer loaded with communication software, giving him a voice for the first time in a very long time. This was the start of great things to happen, including him later finding work as a computer specialist. Martin eventually founded his own company and wrote a book about his story called, “Ghost Boy". He summarized why he titled it like this: “I was there, but no one had seen me. I was a ghost. A ghost boy.”
His speech was, however, lost forever and he is now only able to communicate using a computer. Nevertheless, this didn't hinder him from meeting Joanna, who he eventually married. He now lives happily with his wife in the United Kingdom.
His story is so unbelievable because no one ever expected him to wake up again. Especially not his doctors nor his family. His life events give hope to others because even though Martin experienced something so horrifying, he was miraculously able to overcome it. Here's Martin Pistorius' story as a video:
Share this man's powerful message — a prisoner in his own body who made a remarkable recovery and found love, a home and a job.
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