But Martin wasn't the "vegetable" that doctors said he was. In fact, he could see and hear everything.

"I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney," he recently told NPR. 

In the 1980s, Martin was a typical active youngster growing up in South Africa. But, then, at age 12, he came down with an illness that baffled doctors, and that eventually resulted in him losing his ability to move his limbs, then to make eye contact, and finally to speak.

His parents, Rodney and Joan Pistorius, were told that he was a "vegetable" and the best thing for them to do was take him home and keep him comfortable until he died.

But the youngster continued to live despite the diagnosis.

"Martin just kept going, just kept going," his mom said.

Now, in a new memoir, "Ghost Boy: My Escape From a Life Locked Inside My Own Body," Martin has revealed that, although he was initially unconscious as doctors thought, after about two years he started waking up, eventually becoming fully conscious of everything around him.

Martin's dad, Rodney, cared for his son throughout the ordeal, and recalls the daily routine of rising at five in the morning to get Martin ready for a day at a special care center.

"Eight hours later, I'd pick him up, bathe him, feed him, put him in bed, set my alarm for two hours so that I'd wake up to turn him so that he didn't get bedsores," Rodney said in the NPR report.

Martin remembers, however, that his mom at one point lost hope, and while gazing at her son and thinking he could not hear her, said "I hope you die."

But he did hear her.

"Yes, I was there, not from the very beginning, but about two years into my vegetative state, I began to wake up," Martin said.

"I was aware of everything, just like any normal person. Everyone was so used to me not being there that they didn't notice when I began to be present again. The stark reality hit me that I was going to spend the rest of my life like that – totally alone."

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