Thinking about what happens after we die can be pretty frightening, which is why I love stories that make us really think about how we want to spend our time here on Earth.

We’ve seen some pretty unbelievable-yet-true tales here , like the new mother who came back to life after childbirth when she felt her newborn’s heart beat on her chest.

There’s just no other way to describe it than a miracle.

However, when a person is suffering for such a long time, it can be easy for people close to them to lose hope and even question if they’d be better off letting go.

That’s exactly what happened after 12-year-old Martin Pistorius of South Africa suddenly fell ill and was diagnosed with a degenerative illness, leaving him in a vegetative state.

For 12 long years, Pistorius became trapped inside his own body. He believes he woke up around 14 or 15 years old, but everyone around him thought he was completely unconscious to the world around him.

He even overheard his mother say she wished he was dead, but knew she was heartbroken seeing her son lay there, silently suffering.

In the following powerful NBC interview, we learn what life was like for Pistorius, trapped with his thoughts for over a decade.