When Avni's wife, Orit, a nurse, arrived home, she found him bearing a pulse rate of about 160, making 50 breaths per minute, with symptoms of cyanosis, and called an ambulance.
Avni, since arriving at the hospital, consciously experienced and remembered most if not all of his surroundings audio-visually, later auditory (with eye lids closed), including after anesthesia.
Avni remained in hospital in critical condition due to continuing low oxygen saturation and pulse rates now reaching 180-200.
When he awoke 20 days later, he found his body was almost completely paralyzed; he could control only his left eyelid (as the other was sewn shut to prevent an infection).
Twenty-three years later, using "modern brain imaging techniques and equipment", doctors revised his diagnosis to locked-in syndrome.
Houben's case had been thought to call into question the current methods of diagnosing vegetative state and arguments against withholding care from such patients.
He had spent two-and-a-half years undergoing therapy in a hospital before moving home in a wheelchair to be cared for by his wife, Jane, and his two teenage daughters Lauren and Beth.
's scouting analysis team, watching potential players on DVD and relaying the verdict to the Middlesbrough manager Tony Mowbray solely through blinking.
Now capable of some movement and able to communicate with a speech synthesizer, Pistorius works as a freelance web designer/developer and has published a book about his life entitled Ghost Boy.
[18][19][20] Tony Quan, a graffiti artist, was diagnosed with the nerve disorder ALS in 2003, which eventually left him fully paralyzed except for his eyes.