Lions Bay woman making miraculous recovery from highway accident A LIONS Bay woman has made a ‘‘miraculous’’ recovery following a near-fatal accident on the Squamish Highway in June. The driver of a car that crashed head-on into a car driven by 21- year-old Gillian Broughton is set to appear in Squamish provincia} court on Monday to face a charge of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Nineteen-year-old Todd Ceperley of North Vancouver was charged after a 1987 Mustang Cobra drove past a line of about 10 cars before striking Broughton’s oncoming car in the dusk at a narrow S-curve located between Strip Creek and Charles Creek. Broughton’s 1982 Mazda GLC was demolished on impact. An estimated 200 to 700 pound per square inch impact resulted in massive bleeding and multiple fractures %o Broughton’s brain. She also suffered severed liga- ments in her right knee, a severely dislocated toe on her right foot, a broken ankle, facial lacerations and abrasions. Ceperley sustained a fractured leg and arm. He was released from hospital within 24 hours. At the scene of the accident, emergency responders did not ex- pect Broughton to live. She lay comatose at Lions Gate Hospital for a month after the accident. Her recovery has involved a rebirth, a recovery wrought by love from family and friends. By Michael Becker News Reporter Her parents, Brenda and Michael Broughton, have pains- takingly chronicled Gillian’s journey. Photo albums attest to the very human dimension of the miracle as it unfolded over the months spent in medical care at LGH and at Vanccuver’s GF Strong Rehabilition Centre for cognitive rehabilitation. A calendar kept by her father notes the significant milestones of his daughier’s recovery: June 3, three pins and screw in foot, deep coma continues; July 19, scratch- ed her nose and whisked back a piece of hair that had fallen to her face. Since the collision, Broughton has had to retake the develop- mental steps walked as a child. She has learned again to eat, to walk, to speak, to remember. Yet a part of her life remains beyond the grasp of memory. Briefly a window to the accident opened in July. Recalls her mother, ‘‘Through July she was becoming more con- scious. She was kind of in a trance-like state, and she said, ‘In the accident I honked and I honk- ed and I didn’t believe that the car was going to hit me....’ And then Sunday, March 10, 1991 - North Shore News - 3 Photo submitted AFTER MONTHS of recovery at LGH and GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre Gillian Broughton is mak- ing slow, but steady, progress. she said after a pause, ‘And the trucks came, all the trucks came to help me....’ “Gillian was awake, conscious at the scene. I believe that Gillian had that strategic moment to real- ly make a decision about her life and that Gillian is alive because Gillian held on to her life for that critical period of time,’’ said Brenda Broughtcn. An advanced life support am- bulance, which just happened to be at Horsehoe Bay at the time of the accident, arrived at the scene within minutes. Said Michael Broughton, ‘I have difficulty describing what happened as an accident — when somebody ts on the wrong side of the road and passing 10 cars, it’s like shooting a gun into a crowd and then saying it’s an accident because you hit someone. You don’t know who you’re going to hit but nevertheless you put all of those people at risk by shooting into the crowd.”’ Gillian’s prognosis is good for a complete recovery. But it will take years. Meanwhile Brenda and Michael Broughton, both former Lions Bay aldermen, are lobbying the provincial government to straighten and re-engineer danger- ous corners along the highway — to give drivers some room to move should they find themselves in the way of a car coming at them head on, fast, and with no way out, Condom controversy Medical health officer stresses the facts NORTH Shore medical health officer Dr. Brian O’Connor says the facts about vouth sexuality, condoms and AIDS are getting lost in the often emotional debate over whether North and West Vancouver school districts should install condom-dispensing machines in secondary schools. In a recent News interview, O’Connor said he supports a ‘‘re- invigorated approach’? to sex education and abstinence, but ad- ded that such measures should not be initiated at the expense of sex education and condom machines. O’Connor noted that by the time students reach Grade I! in B.C., almost 50 per cent of them have engaged in sexual intercourse at least once. Although parents can attempt to change the behavior of their children, he said they also have an obligation to give the youths who choose to have sex the safest alternatives possible. O'Connor also said he was con- cerned that a study quoted by a condom opponent in a Feb. 27 News story created the impression that condoms are unreliable pro- tection against AIDS. According to the study quoted, the HIV positive virus (which leads to AIDS) is smaller than the pores in some condoms. But O’Connor said condoms sold in pharmacies are usually latex and have no pores, thereby making it impossible for the virus to penetrate the condom. Although he concedes that con- doms are not fail-proof, O’Con- nor said that by having proper By Elizabeth Collings News Reporter education about condom use and with increased access to condoms, youths who engage in sex will have safer sex than they would without protection. ‘*The condom is the best avail- able protection we have,’’ he said. O'Connor also cast doubt on the argument that condom machines would increase student promiscuity or indicate that socie- ty promotes sex among school children. People who promote sex educa- tion and condom machines, he said, are ‘‘iust responding to facts. They’re not trying to create a moral order.”’ The issue next comes before the West Vancouver District 45 Schooi Board at a March 25 meeting. Acting District 45 superintend- ent Bob Overgaard said the board will discuss feedback from parent advisory groups and hear submis- sions from the public gallery. Meanwhile, the North Van- couver District 44 School Board is expecting its Learning for Living committee to report to the board by March 25. 44 The condom is the best available protection we have. 99 — Dr. Brian O’Connor, N.Shore Medical Health Officer &4 Young people are not sex crazy. They can be taught not to go out and have sex.99 -- Dr. Robert Chan, St. Paul's Hospital Index @ Gary Bannerman .... @ W@ Classified Ads....... 33 @ Cocktails & Caviar...17 WM Comics............. 32 @ Fashion ............ 13 M High Tech.......... 27 G Horoscopes ......... 32 W@ Bob Hunter ........ 4 WB Lifestyles... ........ 29 @ Miss Manners ....... 30 M Travel ............. 25 Vintage Years....... 31 Weather Moncay, periods of rain, Tuesday, cloudy with showers. Highs, 8°C, lows 0°C. Second Class Registration Number 3885 fren Abstinence, not condoms, meeting is informed THE PRACTICALITY of teaching teenagers sexuai abstinence was challenged by a parent Wednesday night during a meeting opposing the installation of condom machines in high schools held by the Focus on the Family religious ministry. “*T would like to know how you can teach abstinence training? { have four teenagers from 13 to 18 years old and I have found that if you teach teenagers one thing, they tend to do the opposite of what you say,’’ said West Van- couver resident Jeanie McKenzie. McKenzie, along with 55 other people, attended a closed meeting for North Shore parent groups, school board officials, trustees and the Learning for Living school advisory group held at Capilano Golf and Country Club in West Vancouver. Like the religious ministry’s previous meeting on Feb. i! in Lynn Valley, Dr. Robert Chan, head of infectious diseases at Vancouver's St. Paul’s Hospital, showed graphic slides of cancers and severe infections that may at- tack AIDS victims. Chan said teenagers should be taught abstinence training to pre- vents AIDS infection. He said sexual abstinence could be taught because teenage sexual activity was a cultural phenomenon. “Young people are not sex crazy. They can be taught not to go out and have sex,”’ said Chan. He said the failure rate for condoms was 14 per cent and condom users had a faise sense of By Anna Marie D’Angelo Contributing Writer security. But Chan also acknowledged that people who use condoms have less incidence of AIDS than non-cendom users. Another speaker, Focus on the Family spokesman Jim Sclater, agreed that children could and should be taught abstinence train- ing in early adolescence. He predicted that all teenagers except for a five per cent ‘‘hard core’’ group would be receptive to abstinence instruction. “There are books filled with facts about abstinence training but there is no money to be made with teaching sexual abstinence,”’ said Sclater. Sclater claimed parents were be- ing sold ‘ta bill of goods’ over condom use by companies wanting to make money from birth con- trol. several audience members complimented the speakers on their presentations, one West Vancouver parent, who declined to give her name, said she still believed teenagers should use condoms for protection if the need arises. Altheugh