A man wakes up from a 12-year coma. What he said shocked everybody. When you think about the word “scary,” the first thing that comes to your mind might be seeing a ghost or an apparition that haunts you in the dark of night.
Yet, whether you believe it or not, such things are relatively rare, and only a few people reported such incidents. But what about something even scarier that might happen to any one of us at any time without initial warning? And that’s falling into a coma.
Coma is a condition in which the human body stops reacting and loses all form of consciousness—a long, deep sleep where the patient is stuck in between two worlds, yet belonging to none. Some people have been in a state of coma for years, lying on a bed attached to life support machines, waiting for the moment they make it to the other side and be relieved of their ordeal.
Yet there are many stories of people doing the complete opposite of that and making what can only be called a miraculous return. Today’s stories are about those exceptional heroes. But before we start, make sure to subscribe if you haven’t and hit that notification bell so that you won’t miss any news stories.
Martin Pistorius was a South African boy who came home from school in January 1988 complaining of a sore throat. His parents didn’t make much of it, as things such as colds and sore throats are nothing to worry about, and usually home remedies are all that’s needed to treat them. Yet what no one expected was that Martin would never go back to school after that day.
As the 12-year-old boy’s condition quickly deteriorated, leaving even the doctors unable to fully understand what was happening to Martin’s body, the sore throat was followed by extreme exhaustion that left the boy unable to do anything as he slept most of the time. Then, a few days later, Martin never woke up from his sleep after he fell into a coma. Martin had a medical history of cryptococcal meningitis and cerebral tuberculosis. Yet, as for the real reason for which he fell into a state of a coma, doctors were never entirely sure. Martin’s family had to adapt to the new reality as their boy lost all forms of contact with the outside world, and there was nothing they could do about it.
After a short stay at the hospital, Martin was taken back home to be cared for by his parents. No one knew how long he would stay in that state; all that the doctors confirmed was that Martin would be overcome with what was ailing him, and he would eventually die because of it. There was a tiny hope that Martin would recover, though, but doctors confirmed if that happened, it would be a miracle, and the boy would never be able to return to normal again.
Yet it was hoped nonetheless, and Martin’s parents held onto it. Life for patients in a coma is a short one, yet Martin was an exception as he kept hanging onto life for more than 10 years. Whether you’d call it life or not is debatable, yet Martin refused to give up. For more than 10 years, people believed that Martin had lost all contact with what was going on around him.
Yet he said that he regained his consciousness a couple of years after he fell into the coma. Martin could feel and hear what was going around him, yet his body was unresponsive. He said, “I was lost in the land where dragons lie, and no one could rescue me.” At the age of 18, Martin finally regained his consciousness, and memory started flowing back. Yet the coma had its toll on his body as he could neither move nor talk. All he could do is silently watch people around him, feeling like a ghost.
Martin said, “I could only watch them. No matter how much I try to beg and plead and scream, I couldn’t make them notice me.” Martin described that he was terrified to know that he’d spend the rest of his life in that state. The boy was locked in a prison of a special kind, lonely despite being surrounded by his family. His only real companion was his own thoughts, and they weren’t cheerful ones. The drastic situation in which Martin was trapped was a living hell, and what made it even worse was when he heard his mother wishing that Martin would just die and put an end to everyone’s suffering.
Martin fully understood that his mother only said so out of despair, as she couldn’t help her beloved son. The only one whose belief in Martin was unwavering was his father. The man stood by his son until his death, washing, feeding, and dressing Martin on a daily basis. He even gave him body massages, hoping that would help improve the physical state of Martin. Martin sadly recalls those moments, saying, “Inside, I cried desperately to him, ‘Dad, I’m here, can’t he see?’ But he didn’t notice me. I can only stare, praying my silent desperation would somehow communicate itself.”
Martin refused to give up on his drastic state, and he knew that if he lost his physical abilities, he should at least maintain his mental ones. And so he kept on solving all sorts of problems in his mind as a form of practice. Martin also kept trying to communicate with people around him, hoping that one day one would pick up the signs and reactions he was making. That’s what happened when a paramedic noticed the faint communication attempts Martin was making. The paramedic believed that the 25-year-old was fully aware of his environment and responsive to what’s happening around him. And so she discussed the matter with his family and responsible doctors.
Martin was sent to a special center for alternative communication at the University of Pretoria. All the tests that Martin went through at the center confirmed that he was conscious. Thrilled by the news, his mother quit her job to help Martin work on expressing himself better, and for the next two years, she played a central role in developing a computer program that her son uses to communicate. Martin provides the input in the form of words, and the computer program speaks for him. That computer program was a life changer for Martin, who could finally reintegrate into social life, finish college, and even land a job as a designer who worked from home.
Martin went through a lengthy rehabilitation process that helped him regain some physical functions, such as his facial expressions and movement of the upper part of his body. Things kept improving for Martin when he met Joanna and got married before moving to the UK, where they’re happily married. Martin felt like he needed to share his experience and what he went through, and so he published a book entitled “Ghost Boy,” in which he told the story from his perspective, reflecting on all that he has experienced throughout the 10 years he spent locked inside his own body and the rehabilitation journey.
Martin urges everybody to show love and sympathy and never stop believing in those who need their support and compassion. Martin’s story is rare yet not a unique one. Another man named Jan Grabinsky fell into a coma that lasted from 1988 to 2007. When Jan was 46, he had an accident at the railway company for which he was working and got seriously injured.
When he was sent to the hospital, the doctors had more sad news for his family, as the x-ray images revealed a brain tumor that complicated Jan’s case even further, and eventually, he fell into a coma. Similar to other cases, doctors didn’t believe he would survive and would live for no longer than three years. Yet Jan was blessed by a wife that didn’t give up on him. Gettruna not only took full care of her husband, but she also constantly talked to him, keeping him updated about all that was happening.
Though that might seem fruitless, Gettruda kept on talking to her husband on a daily basis, and to her surprise, one day, Jan reacted to his wife’s words by faintly moving his fingers and eyes. She reported that to the doctors, who dismissed it as involuntary convulsive movements provoked by his growing brain tumor. Yet, in fact, Jan’s tumor was shrinking, and he was gradually regaining his consciousness to finally get out of his coma completely on April 12, 2007, confirming that his wife was right all the time.
By the time Jan fell into a coma, he left four little kids and woke up to find his kids married and that he had 11 grandchildren. Jan also was stupefied by all the changes around him, as he left Poland as a communist country where only tea and vinegar were available at the shops while everything else was rationed, and woke up to find a campus country that was part of the European Union where everything was available in abundance, and everyone owned a cell phone.
Jan was stupefied by the technological development, yet his wife’s daily talking to him kept him abreast of the family’s news. A similar case of the vegetative patient waking up is that of Juan Torres in Milton, Ontario. He was only 19 when Juan came back from school, had a salad, and then went to his room. On the following morning, his mother was shocked when she found him lying on the floor unconscious and rushed him to the hospital.
The doctors who examined Juan broke the sad news to his family: the young man fell into a coma and would never recover from it. The reason for which Juan fell into the coma remained unclear, as according to his parents, he didn’t complain of anything, and everything was normal with him. Juan lost all his physical abilities, so he couldn’t move nor talk, and his parents simply refused to give up on him. Two years later, on a Thanksgiving day, as Juan was taken to the backyard for some fresh air and watches dogs play around, his father placed the dog’s whistle in Juan’s mouth and asked him to whistle to his favorite pets, and to the surprise of his father, Juan did just that.
The doctors who were in charge of his case explained that it couldn’t just be a reflex, what Juan did was a clear sign that he was regaining his physical functions again. The ability to whistle was Juan’s first step towards recovering the ability to speak again, and it was followed by regaining other functions such as moving his hands, playing the piano again, and he even started controlling his legs and started learning how to walk again. Juan said that he was fully conscious of all that had happened throughout those two years. He could hear and understand what the others were saying to him.
He clearly remembers how doctors asked him to move his hands or follow the tennis ball with his eyes, and he was furious for not being able to do any of that or at least communicate his thoughts to them. Eventually, Juan recovered most of his physical abilities, rejoined college, and even started playing wheelchair rugby. Though doctors still can’t find an explanation for what happened to Juan or how he could recover again, though there must be a scientific explanation to it, it’s still a miracle.
Miracles happen, and even people who are at the edge of leaving this life for good return, each one in a unique way. Yet, there’s one thing in common that characterized all these stories is that the patients had people who loved them, believed in them, and simply refused to give up on them until they made it. And in fact, we all have a good reason that we must learn and apply.
