Man Awakens After 12-Year Coma: ‘Ghost Boy’ Highlights Coma Experience, What Man Remembers

A man awakens after a 12-year coma, and his story is going viral on the web this week. According to WREG, Martin Pistorius fell into a coma in the late 1980s and while his doctors told his family that he would die, they spent their days with him, going through a routine — and almost everything that they did and said, Martin says he remembers.

“Every morning his father would get up at 5 a.m., dress Martin and take him to the care center. At the end of the day, he’d give him a bath, feed him dinner and put him to bed. His parents set an alarm to go off every two hours to turn Martin’s body so he wouldn’t get bed sores. It was their life for 12 years.”

Years after the man awoke following his 12-year coma, he decided to write a book. Ghost Boy details what Martin, who is from South Africa, remembers from about two years into his coma, which is when he thinks that he began to wake up, on. While he couldn’t open his eyes or communicate with his family, Martin says that he heard them talking to him. He could hear the television, and he knew what was going on around him, even if he couldn’t convey that to his loved ones.

He recalled one of the most painful things that anyone ever said to him, and it was something his own mom whispered to him while he was in a coma.

“I hope you die,” she said. And while she feels horrible that her son heard her say those tragic words, he knows that it’s because she wanted him to be in peace. She obviously didn’t know that her son was “present” in his condition. And when he finally came to, he said it took his family a while to really realize what was happening.

“Everyone was so used to me not being there that they didn’t notice when I began to be present again.”

According to My Fox 8, Martin felt completely trapped in his own body for over a decade. Now, however, he is able to communicate. He is fully aware of his surroundings, but he can’t walk. He uses a wheelchair to get around, and a computer to speak — but he is alive.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Martin recently sat down for a candid interview with NPR. He opened up about the darkest time in his life, and how far he has come now, living a life he never thought he would.

You can read more about Martin’s book, Ghost Boy, here.

[Photo courtesy of MartinPistorius.com]