Locked in: One of Lynne Malcolm's favourite All in the Mind programs

All In The Mind

ABC listen

Life Sciences, Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

At the age of 12 Martin Pistorius developed a mysterious neurological illness. He fell into a coma and was unable to move or communicate. It was assumed he had no awareness but a couple of years later he began to wake up—yet no-one knew. He was trapped inside his body for almost 10 years until he found a way to communicate. Using computer-generated voice technology he tells us about how he coped with this terrifying ordeal, and how he found the love of his life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an ABC podcast.
0:05.7	Hi, it's All In The Mind on RN. I'm Lynne Malcolm and we're celebrating my years as host of All in the Mind with a selection of my favourites.
0:16.3	Today, a compelling story from 2015 of how a young man's escape from a lonely nightmare becomes a moving
0:25.4	love story. Have you ever seen one of those movies in which someone wakes up as a ghost,
0:33.3	but they don't know they've died? That's how it was, as I realised,
0:38.1	people were looking through and around me,
0:41.1	and I didn't understand why.
0:43.3	However much I tried to beg and plead,
0:46.5	shout and scream,
0:48.1	I couldn't make them notice me.
0:50.3	My mind was trapped inside a useless body.
0:54.2	My arms and legs weren't mine to control, and my voice was mute.
0:59.4	I couldn't make a sign or a sound to let anyone know I'd become aware again.
1:04.7	I was invisible.
1:07.0	The Ghost Boy.
1:11.6	That's from Ghost Boy, the autobiography of Martin Pistorius, who at the age of 12 developed
1:18.1	a mysterious neurological illness which left him mute and unable to move, locked inside his body.
1:26.1	The doctors assumed that he was in a vegetative state and would not have long to live.
1:31.3	Yet a couple of years after this, he began to wake up, but still could not communicate,
1:37.3	so no one knew it had happened.
1:40.3	Martin Pistorius is now 30, and we spoke via Skype using a computer with speech software.
1:48.0	He recalls emerging from his coma, only to realise he was locked in.
	...

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