Sarah Ezekiel’s story is one of resilience, technology, and the surprising power of a long-forgotten home video. Twenty-five years ago, at just 34, Ezekiel’s life changed dramatically when she was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), a devastating neurological condition that gradually robbed her of the ability to speak and use her hands. The diagnosis came only months after she became a mother for the second time, and it marked the start of a journey that would test the limits of her endurance—and, ultimately, the possibilities of modern technology.
For decades, Ezekiel’s two children, Aviva and Eric, only ever heard their mother’s words through a synthetic, robotic voice. That machine, while functional, was a poor substitute for the warmth, humor, and subtlety of her true accent. The family learned to adapt, but the loss of her original voice was a daily reminder of what MND had taken. According to the BBC, Ezekiel described the experience as deeply isolating, especially in the early years when communication was nearly impossible. "After such a long time, I couldn’t really remember my voice. When I first heard it again, I felt like crying. It’s a kind of miracle," she told the BBC using eye-gaze technology that tracks her eye movements to allow her to type and communicate.
Motor neurone disease, as described by the NHS and cited in The Independent, is a degenerative condition affecting the brain and spinal cord, causing muscle weakness, and, for most, the eventual loss of speech. About 1,000 people in the UK are diagnosed each year, and the prognosis is often grim. For Ezekiel, the diagnosis came with a cascade of personal challenges: her marriage ended soon after, and she was left to raise two young children while relying on 24-hour care. The emotional toll was immense, as she battled not only physical decline but also the sense of being cut off from those she loved.
Yet, as the years passed, technology began to offer new avenues for communication. Five years after her diagnosis, Ezekiel started using eye-gaze technology to type out messages, which were then spoken aloud by a computerized voice. While this was a significant improvement, the voice itself was generic and emotionless, reminiscent of the one used by the late physicist Stephen Hawking. It did the job, but it couldn’t capture the nuances of Ezekiel’s personality—her accent, her lisp, or the subtle inflections that make a voice uniquely human.
The turning point came when Bristol-based assistive technology company Smartbox approached Ezekiel with a bold idea: to recreate her natural voice using artificial intelligence. The challenge was daunting. Smartbox’s Simon Poole explained to The Independent that their usual process required at least an hour of audio to build a convincing voice model. But Ezekiel, who lost her speech before smartphones and digital recorders became ubiquitous, had only a single eight-second clip of her voice, recorded on a scratchy VHS tape.
Poole recalled his heart sinking when he realized how little material they had to work with. But advances in AI-driven voice synthesis offered a glimmer of hope. By looping the short clip through cutting-edge algorithms trained on thousands of voices, the technology was able to fill in the missing pieces—predicting where Ezekiel’s voice might rise or fall, how her accent shaped her words, and even recreating the slight lisp she once had. The result was astonishingly lifelike.
For Ezekiel, hearing her own voice again after so many years was an emotional shock. "After such a long time, I couldn’t really remember my voice. When I first heard it again, I felt like crying. It’s a kind of miracle," she told the BBC. The new AI-powered voice didn’t just sound more natural; it restored a piece of her identity that had been missing for decades. She joked with The Independent, "I was very posh and people didn’t know I was [really a] cockney with a slight lisp." The technology, she said, was better than sounding like a robot.
The impact on her family was immediate and profound. Her son Eric told The Independent that the new voice allowed his mother to express emotions—happiness, sadness, even anger—in ways that simply weren’t possible before. This, he said, made the family feel closer than ever. Her daughter Aviva was equally moved, explaining that hearing her mother’s real voice was "amazing" and helped her see her mother as a full person, not just someone communicating through a robotic intermediary. "Mum isn’t just a disabled person in the corner with a robot that doesn’t relate to her," Aviva told The Independent.
The story of Sarah Ezekiel’s voice restoration is not just a personal triumph—it’s a testament to the rapid evolution of assistive technology and artificial intelligence. According to The Independent, Smartbox’s use of AI voice synthesis represents a significant leap forward in giving people with degenerative conditions like MND a chance to reclaim aspects of their identity that were once thought lost forever. While the technology is still evolving, Ezekiel’s case demonstrates that even the smallest fragments of a person’s past—an eight-second video clip, in this instance—can be enough to unlock something extraordinary.
Looking back, Ezekiel’s experience highlights both the challenges faced by those living with MND and the potential for technology to bridge seemingly insurmountable gaps. The journey from total isolation to a new kind of connection was not easy. It required patience, innovation, and a willingness to embrace new tools. But the outcome—a mother’s voice restored, a family reunited in a deeper way—shows what’s possible when determination meets technological ingenuity.
As of August 20, 2025, Ezekiel continues to use her AI-generated voice in daily life, relying on eye-gaze technology to communicate. The new voice, with its familiar accent and subtle inflections, has become an integral part of her identity. And while the challenges of living with MND remain, the restoration of her voice stands as a powerful reminder that technology, at its best, can give back more than it takes away.
