Dudes Fucking Rock: A Man Fully Paralyzed By ALS Spoke For The First Time In Months Via Brain Implant And Immediately Asked For A Beer
A completely paralysed man, who was left unable to communicate for months after losing the ability to even move his eyes, has used a brain implant to ask his caregivers for a beer.
Composing sentences at a rate of just one character per minute, the man also asked to listen to the band Tool “loud”, requested a head massage from his mother, and ordered a curry – all through the power of thought.
The man, who is now 36, had two square electrode arrays surgically implanted into his brain to facilitate communication in March 2019 after being left in a locked-in state as a result of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Until now, a brain implant has not been tested on a completely locked-in patient, and it was not known whether communication was even possible for people who had lost all voluntary muscular control.
Get this man a thousand beers every hour on the hour. What a goddamn icon. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” just got put on a poster worse than Chris Dudley. That’s no longer the most iconic phrase uttered to accompany the first documented human to accomplish an insane feat. This hero spoke, using only the electrical currents in his brain, for the first time ever. A real life modern miracle. He could have said anything and it would have been a game-changing medical breakthrough. But no. This is called rising to the occasion, having a feel for the moment, a complete understanding that this will be in medical journals and textbooks for the rest of time, and he fucking nailed it. “Get me a tall frosty one, crank the tunes, and for the love of Christ is it too much to get a head massage around here?”
All joking aside, I genuinely cannot imagine the strength it takes to battle with ALS. To be completely at the whim of everyone else, trapped with nothing but your thoughts. It’s a horror I wouldn’t wish on anyone, to suffer through themselves or watch a love one go through it. This guy didn’t just want a beer.
He was also able to interact with his 4-year-old son and wife, generating the message: “I love my cool son.”
Of course this kid is cool, his dad might be the biggest badass on the planet right now. Playing the classics and putting down a cold one with your son is a beautiful thing. No matter the time, no matter the place, it doesn’t get any better than that.
Cheers, king. Keep making miracles