Incredible recovery of the
locked-in syndrome victim
who asked mum to kill him
Walking miracle
2011
mirror.co.uk FRIDAY 30.08.2019 DAILY MIRROR^21
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determinedly set about building up his
strength bit by bit.
He managed to make a thumb and
finger touch, then kept pushing himself
ever harder and harder.
While lying on his back he started
moving his hands, arms and legs.
A major milestone came when he
kicked a pillow off his bed.
Slowly, he taught himself to walk
again. He would spend hours practising
how to stride up and down his ward and
doing pull-ups off the side of his bed.
Peter’s recovery is made all the
more incredible because while
80% of locked-in syndrome
victims survive, they are
left in a persistent
vegetative state.
The medical profess-
ion now wants to study
the factors behind his
achievement.
Peter returned to his
home town of Marple,
Greater Manchester, in 2014,
and re-trained as a disabled
people’s carer. Now he has written a book
about his experiences – called In The
Blink Of An Eye: Reborn.
He wants to help other locked-in
syndrome sufferers but at the same time
tells how he sympathises with those who
want to end their own lives.
“I want victims of this to hold on,” said
Peter. “With strokes and cranial injuries,
the brain can heal through struggle.
“But I do support sufferers’ right
to euthanasia. I believe in the right to
choose to die if there is no sign of
improvement in condition.”
[email protected]
@StephenWhite278
VOICE OF THE MIRROR: PAGE 8BY STEPHEN WHITEParalysis left Peter unable to do
anything for himself in hospitalPeter learned
to walk againA BRICKLAYER paralysed by a rare
condition after an accident at work
aims to inspire other sufferers with
a book about his miraculous recovery.
Peter Coghlan, then 34, was left with
locked-in syndrome after smashing his
head into a concrete slab when he stood
up in a tunnel.
Damage to his brain stem meant that
although conscious, he could not speak
or move apart from tiny eyelid flutters.
At his lowest ebb in hospital, Peter
came to the grim realisation he
could be a human vegetable
for the rest of his life.
By blinking out letters
of the alphabet to
his distraught mother
Anne, 63, he spelled
out: “Mum I want to
die. Please kill me.”
He recalls now : “She
told me ‘If you still
want to die in three months’
time then I will help you
somehow but hold on for now,
you’re doing well’.”
The ex-soldier battled through his
despair and eventually became the first
locked-in syndrome victim to walk out
of a hospital ward.
Peter, now 42, was discharged from the
Army when he was diagnosed with lung
cancer on his 21st birthday.
After two years’ treatment he began
a new career as a brickie in Australia.
His accident in 2011 happened after 11
years there.
After his mother’s pep talk he made
one of the fastest recoveries from the
condition ever seen.
Over a gruelling six months, PeterINSPIRING
Mum Anne
with Peter