Ok, so those of us searching for real-life super-human abilities have comes to terms with the unlikeliness of it. I mean, since irradiating oneself (or getting bitten by something irradiated) has disappointingly proven to only lead to fatal tumors instead of wall-crawling or smashing abilities, we must face the facts that comic books have lied to us. No super-powers for us.
…
Meet Australia’s Ben McMahon. Ben was just your everyday High School student until one day he was bit by a radioactive car crash…well, ok, he was IN a car crash. After spending a week in a coma that doctors were unsure he would pull out of, Ben woke up…changed. Even though a native English speaker, Ben woke up unable to speak anything but very fluent Mandarin Chinese.
“Most of it’s hazy, but when I woke up seeing a Chinese nurse, I thought I was in China,” said McMahon. “It was like a dream. It was surreal. It was like my brain was in one place but my body was in another. I just started speaking Chinese – they were the first words that left my mouth.” It took Ben a few days but his English came back to him. However, he didn’t lose a whit of his new ability.
Ben has gone on to conduct Chinese tours of Melbourne, hosts a local Mandarin TV show, and now is attending University in Shanghai. While he briefly studied the language in school, it wasn’t anywhere near enough of a study to explain his new verbal skills. And Ben isn’t the only one.
Multiple people in the past have woken up from brain injuries with new fluency in a language, musical or mathematical prodigy skills or even super-strength and the ability to fly.
Ok, not those last two. But here’s hoping. I’m going to go home and construct my catapult next to my brick wall now in prep. Anyone out there good at sewing spandex?