“For the last 15 years I have communicated by blinking my left eye. Forgive me for saying – it is a bloody brilliant left eye!”

Dawn Faizey Webster – TEDx Exeter 2018

Dawn Faizey Webster

Fighting back one blink at a time: living with Locked-In Syndrome

Silenced by a brain-stem stroke, for the last 15 years Dawn Faizey Webster has communicated with the world by blinking her left eye. Instead of giving up on life she decided to fight back and so far she’s blinked her way through a degree and a Masters and has now embarked on a PhD, one of the first people in the world with Locked In Syndrome to start a doctorate. She blinked her TEDxExeter talk, read here for her by Dexter Dias QC. Her powerful story of human resilience will inspire you.

Dawn Faizey Webster is a postgraduate researcher at York University, currently researching a PhD in Architectural History, having completed a degree in Ancient History and a Master’s in History of Art with the Open University.

Dawn worked as a computer science teacher at a Grammar School in the Midlands until she suffered a brainstem stroke, resulting in her developing Locked-In Syndrome. Undaunted, Dawn has pursued her academic career relentlessly, communicating with the world by blinking. She has brought up her teenaged son, and has an unquenchable love for heavy metal music, Monty Python and trivia of all kinds (and that really means all kinds).

Biography published 2018

Watch our other 2018 speakers