From panel

{ feeling that you're helpless and
Bae can’t do anything. We're being
B held back and the fireman are
down there cutting him out.”
. It took an hour and 40 min-
my utes to do it.
€ = Willson is quick to credit the
Mi firemen and paramedics who
kept Michael's lungs breathing
for saving his son’s life.
. Michael’s parents are
divorced. His mother, Joanie
Dumas, is remarried and lives
in Sudbury, Ontario with
Michael’s younger _ sister,

Meghan.
Michael had lived there too
Mm until moving back west to live
with his father some cight
4 months prior to the accident.
Dumas got the call at four
in the morning, eastern time.
= == Twenty minutes later her
husband was driving her to the
Toronto airport.
‘She doesn’t = remember
m much of the journcy, arriving at
@ Vancouver General Hospital at
2 p.m.
She says Michael was unrec-
ognizable. . :
He had three cracked verte-
brae, a broken shoulder, a bro-
a ken upper arm, 2 broken lower
arm, a broken hip, :a: broken
thigh and a perforated bowel.
*. ‘But the head injuries were
the most frightening. . -
_~ He had severe hemorrhag-

ing of the brain, a‘ lot of

‘swelling of the brairi, ‘and he
was comatose.

-*They kept saying.‘In 36
hours we'll know if he'll live’
and after 36 hours they'd say
‘48 and we'll know if he'll live.’

“So we never really knew. It

Name: Dean McArthur Durie
Age: 24

fence: loitering and attempt-
‘ed theft
Call NV RCMP at 985-1311

was horrible,” savy Dunias.

It transpired) Michael had
wo major brain injuries: one to
the brain’stem and one to the
frontal lobe.

He lay in a coma for wo
months.

Agitated limb movements
were contined to the right side
and paralysis seemed likely.

At one point a doctor stood
at the foot of his bed in the
intensive care ward and said to
his parents, “More than likely
this is what you are going to
get.”

But one day his lett hand
squeezed his mother’s.

His eyes began to focus and
speech came back — albeit in
French, a language — that

_Michacl hadn’t spoken since

Grade 1.

From those beginnings his
recovery has been stratospheric
in terms of medical expecta-
tion.

Dumas has high regard for
the one-to-one nursing
Michael received, but is con-
vinced that it is his friends who
have had a lor to do with his
recovery. os

“You only hear about bad
kids, but these kids were won-
derful. i

“The doctors have no expla-
nation tor Michae!’s recovery
and I still think it’s the kids.
‘They've been there so much for
him I just believe it.”

Says Wilson: “These kids
would get on a bus and travel
for up to ovo hours during the
summer, Even before he came
out of his coma they were there
for him.

“They would sit around his
wheelchair outside of the hos-

Name: Shelly Lee Taypotat
Age: 31 Offence: theft under
$5.000. failure to appear in
court

Call NV RCMP at 985-1311

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pital and try to give triendship
to him even though be didn’t
have any memory and didn't
really know who tiey were.”

Lara Perey, Katie Kelly and
Lisa Kinney are three of the
Kids in question.

They describe Michael as
open, friendly and fun and “a
guy you could get very close
to.”

“He was a great friend,”
says one,

There is a brief pause, and
then the emphatic correction,
“He is a great friend.”

Asked to explain their
actions they say, “We fele that if
that was us Michael would have
done the same.”

Michael agrees he has a
good bunch of friends and fire-
ily.

“I’m lucky to have them —
they're lucky to have me,” he
says with perfect timing, the
double meaning provoking
laughter from all who hear.

Michacl has been at GF.
Strong Rehabilitation Centre
since the end of August,
relearning, skills that have all
been forgotten, some as basic
as feeding and cleaning himself.

Each weekend he comes
home there are improvements
in his cognitive, physical and
speech skills.

Dumas has spent the last 23
weeks with her ex and his wife.

For the most part, she says
it’s been tine — a lesson about
what can happen when a larger
tragedy puts everything else
into perspective.

Wilson says pulling together
extended to the neighborhood.

He had recently moved to

the secluded area above

Name:
Lake
Age: 47 Offence: failing to
comply with a court order

Call NV RCMP at 985-1311

Reginald Kenneth

10604 King George Hwy.. Surrey, B.C.

Caulteild, ver neighbors he
didn’t know arrived on his
doorstep with food for his fam-
ih while they dealt with the first
tow weeks of traum and con-
stant hospital visits.

Michael's parents acknowl-
edge he probably never will be
the same.

“The fact that he’s alive is
enough for me,” says Dumas.

“EF wouldn't have cared if he
had been quadriplegic, had he
been retarded or anything. The
fact that he is alive is all I need.
Everything else is a bonus.”

Dumas and Michael’s
friends are all aware that recov-
ery from brain injuries can con-
tinue for nvo or more years.
They are hopeful that if
Michael continues to maintain
the speed of his recovery he will
come all the way back.

He'll be discharged from
GF, Strong Dec. 12 and in
January will start a two-year
special program, = which
includes life skills, that West
Van secondary has set up for
him.

In the meantime, Michael
has a message that his parents
hope other teens will heed:

“It’s not good to speed. I
almost died driving too fast.”

Should the lesson need
underlining, Michael attended
the fimeral of a former school-
mate, Kerry Caitlin Ferris, on
Sept. 18. She was killed in a sin-
gle vehicle accident that police
attribute to speed, inexperience

Faking €are. of

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- 165 PEMBERTON AVE. N. VAN
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Closed Sunddy & Monday
oa . . eos,

Friday, November 21, 1997 — North Shore News — 5

‘Student starts over after brain injury

and no seat belt.

Michacl’s half-sister Jessica
has a personal and poignant
version of the same truth.

“Speed might not kill, bur it
sure can damage.”

The 11-year-old makes a
point of seeking out the News
reporter herself to deliver the
words, an adult's direct gaze in
achild’s freckled face.

Her love for her brother is
obvious. Her cyes rarely leave
him during the course of the
atternoon and she hurries to
his side as a News photograph-
cr organizes a picture of the
children.

Michacl’s arm goes around

FUTON

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FACTORY FUTOR

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her shoulder in an almost
reflexive action.

They've come to know each
other nvice now. Once during
the eight months betore the
accident and again since
Michael’s re-awakening.

Asked if she was ever atraid
Michael was going to dic, she
replies:

“1 knew he wasn’t because
it was my birthday about 25
days before the accident and he
got me this card that said ‘f am
so happy to be your brother
and I hope we spend the rest of
our lives knowing each other.’

“[_ was pretty sure he was
going to make it, veah.”

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