Pohřbený zaživa – Marsh Richard (2014)

In May 2009, Richard Marsh, a police officer from Napa Valley, California, suffered a stroke, after which he became a victim of locked-in syndrome (locked-in syndrome, in French maladie de l’emmuré vivant, literally 'the disease of being walled up alive'). In this condition, the patient is conscious, can think, perceive, hear, and understand, but is unable to move or communicate with the outside world, as all voluntarily controllable muscles are paralyzed. When Richard Marsh regained consciousness two days after the stroke, he could only helplessly watch from his hospital bed as doctors asked his wife whether they should disconnect him from the machines. However, he did not want to die and was determined to fight. Fortunately, one of the doctors concluded that Richard's situation might not be entirely hopeless. The discovery that Richard could communicate by blinking marked the beginning of his long and arduous journey to recovery. No one knows exactly how Richard Marsh managed to recover – 90% of patients with locked-in syndrome die within the first month, and the syndrome is essentially untreatable. However, Richard succeeded, and in the book Locked-in Alive, he describes everything he experienced during the long months of rehabilitation.