Watch the exact moment deaf teen hears her dad's voice for the first time ever

Despite all its flaws, it won’t be wrong to say that technology is changing our lives for the better. It has been widely reported that many of these scientifically backed innovations are making the impossible possible. The same happened with a teenage girl who was born deaf when she heard sound for the first time ever. Maggie Gleason’s family was amazed to see their daughter listening to them not with her ears, but with her brain. The wholesome interaction, shared by University Hospitals Case Medical Center (@universityhospitals on YouTube), showed the then 14-year-old responding to her parents' calls with the help of auditory brainstem implants.

In the widely shared video, the hearing-impaired teen was seen listening to her caregivers, bringing a joyful laugh to their faces. During her medical examination at UH’s facility in Cleveland, Maggie successfully heard the sound with the help of brain implants. Even though the incident took place in 2015, it still managed to strike a chord due to the then-school-going girl’s determination to hear her surroundings. (The tiny snail-shaped bones in Maggie's inner ears that house the auditory (hearing) nerve were absent from birth). Maggie’s father, Frank Gleason, could hardly hold back his excitement after she nodded at him, repeatedly saying, “Can you hear me?”

During the nearly 50-second footage, the deaf teen’s mom and sister could not believe the fact that she was listening to their calls. The medical attendant present was also amazed to see the patient successfully using the ABI to decode words addressed to her through sensory signals. According to the UH Center, the implantable device provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf. The brain implants helped Maggie understand the words spoken by her parents by bypassing her ears and directly stimulating the brain. Prior to this, the teen's hearing disability was considered incurable, as she had no auditory nerve.

“For someone who has never heard, the perception and awareness of sound is extremely helpful,” USA Today quoted the statement of one of her surgeons, Maroun Semaan, MD, of UH Case Medical Center. Emphasizing he was left “speechless,” Gleason said, “(I) always felt I would have a lot to say to her when the moment came.” Before finally getting the chance to hear sounds, Maggie had to wait 14 long years for a “life-changing” technology like ABI to arrive.

In September 2014, the teen underwent a successful surgical procedure, followed by a test prior to this experiment. Maggie was reportedly a ninth grader at Lorain High School and was attending a class for the hearing impaired at the time. The footage showing her medical team activating the device and recording the initial moments of the teen being able to hear managed to draw widespread attention on social media. Among the reactions, @GaryWattsFilms wrote, “I'm happy that this technology has reached Maggie; may it help her continue to make great strides in her life.” “Good luck to Maggie and her family! And huge thank you to the hospital team,” @ezcambridge.