From Coma to Glory: The Incredible Story of Martin Pistorius

Martin Pistorius was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on December 31, 1975, to Joan and Rodney Pistorius.

As a young boy, Martin was obsessed with electronics, and components of electrical appliances such as resistors, transistors, capacitors, and many others.

At the age of 12 in 1987, his life took a dark turn when he started developing early signs of a neurological illness, locked-in syndrome. Slowly, he started losing voluntary motor control such as his ability to walk, eat, write, etc. This progressed until he became vegetative.

Initially, doctors were unable to make the proper diagnosis, they speculated and came up with what they believed were the two most likely diagnoses: tuberculosis of the brain and cryptococcal meningitis.

The doctors treated him the best they could, but his condition was not improving. He was vegetative and every day the number of days they expected him to live continued to decline. The parents were told he had very few prospects of making it out alive.

He was in a vegetative state for four years. Martin's father, Rodney, took care of him during the night time, he would wake up every two hours to turn him so he wouldn't develop bed sores.

From the age of 16, While everyone thought he was in a coma, Martin was conscious and could hear the conversation going on in the hospital room. He could hear when his mother wished he was dead. She told him, 'I hope you die'. He heard what they were saying but he could not respond due to the illness he was suffering from.

Locked-in syndrome causes complete paralysis of almost all the voluntary muscles in the body except the muscles for vertical eye movements and blinking. He heard their conversations and moved his eyes, but they didn't notice this until the day one of his day carers, Virna van der Walt, discovered that he moved his eyes to some of the words she spoke as if he understood.

Following this strange discovery, Virna suggested that Martin be sent to the Centre For Augmentative And Alternative Communication, at the University of Pretoria, he was 25 at the time. There, it was discovered that he could understand what was being said and could even respond to them. To help Martin communicate with people around him, his parents got him a speech computer, similar to the type Steve Hawking used.

Once he was able to communicate, he spoke of events such as Nelson Mandela becoming president, the death of Princess Diana, and the September 11 attacks. These events took place during the time he was thought to be in a coma.

Gradually, he regained full consciousness, and in 2008, he met a British woman, Joanna, through his sister, Kim. He moved to the UK in 2009 where he got married to Joana.

In 2011, he wrote his autobiography, Ghost Boy, with Megan Lloyd Davies. When they were working on the book, Martin still needed his speech computer to be able to communicate with others. He said, ‘Without a voice, I couldn’t control the simplest of things and I felt like a ghost.’

Martin's marriage to Joanna was blessed with a son, Sebastian Albert Pistorius, in December 2018.

Martin was attending an open day at the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, in England, when he encountered a lecturer who inspired him to get a degree in computer science.

He enrolled for the computer science degree and documented his entire process at the university. He learned, made friends, and founded a website development agency.

In his final year project, Martin built a speech computer for himself which allowed him to communicate with others through a keyboard and a screen.

Book Alert!

This book was put together for true crime fans who want to do some true crime activities.

This should be a fun-to-use book for anyone who enjoys true crime stories.

It is available on Amazon

True Crime Activity Book for Adults: Crime-themed Activities (Crosswords, Cryptograms, Mazes, Brain Games, Word Searches, Anagrams, Trivia, Drawing, and many more)