Rom Houben, a 46 year-old Belgian man who was diagnosed as being in a coma after a car accident in 1983, has been discovered to have normal brain functions after a scan was performed in 2006. In the beginning, “I cried out, but nothing came out”, he says. The day his brain was discovered to be intact was like “being born again.” He says he eventually learned to live with the opinion that others had of him. His mother has said that she always believed her son could communicate.

Houben, though paralyzed, now communicates with a specially adapted computer keyboard, and is writing a book on his experiences.

Links to other sites: BBC, Le Soir (Fre)