Lightwriter

The doctors initially believed he had sunstroke and that the symptoms would soon pass, but became perplexed as he began to deteriorate rapidly and decided to get him back to England as quickly as possible for further treatment, and he was transferred to Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge where doctors could not decide whether the problem was neurological or vascular, and their diagnostic tools were limited since this was before the days of CT and MRI scanners which nowadays can look inside someone's body non-invasively.

He was then in a state of ‘locked-in syndrome’, where he was perfectly aware of everything that was said to him but unable to respond, a condition eloquently described by Jean-Dominique Bauby in his book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Gradually, some movement returned to his left hand and arm, and a little to his legs, so he was no longer bed-bound and after a few months was transferred to Stoke Mandeville Hospital (National Spinal Injury Unit) for further physiotherapy and rehabilitation and was there introduced to the early POSSUM Row/Column scanner.

While this was less tiring for the communication partner, it was not portable and became unnecessarily slow after Toby had regained hand movement and the ability to type.

[2] Other notable users include Professor Sydney Selwyn and comedian Lee Ridley In the 1998 film The Theory of Flight starring Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter, Bonham Carter's character, a young woman with motor neuron disease, uses a Lightwriter to communicate.