Brian Hogan's life changed forever on July 19th, 2009 when he suffered an unprovoked attack. The Limerick man was living in Nottingham and working as a quantity surveyor. On a night out, he was punched once, fell and hit his head on the kerb. Brian went into a three month coma and was given a 10% chance of living. 

Despite the odds being stacked against him. Brian battled and came out of his coma. He describes the moment he opened his eyes for the first time after the attack.

"My first memories were I could hear my family's voices, my Mom and Dad and my siblings' voices and I thought, my family should be in Ireland...I couldn't see, I was wondering why can't I see. My eyes are open, I would touch my eyelids and know my eyes were open but I can't see."

Due to the brain injuries suffered, Brian was left blind and partially paralysed. In a bid to aid his recovery, Brian and his family examined different treatments that would help. They discovered there was a hospital in Beijing that offered stem cell treatment from bone marrow that had proved successful. After a massive fundraising effort, Brian left for China.

The treatment proved quite difficult, but a year and half after returning home, Brian has seen improvement in his movements.

"My left side of my body was completely paralysed, I couldn't move my left arm at all...I didn't have any sensation and now I have a lot more sensation and I can move my left hand a lot more and I can pick things up if I made an effort."  

Brian and his sister Nevis spoke to us from studio in Limerick and you can hear the full interview below:

You can follow Brian's progress on helpbrian.blogspot.ie