Personal Stories Of Brain Injured People ..... No. 2

Peter Mulroy who lives on McLeay Island in Moreton Bay out from Brisbane, Australia as at 31.07.09





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Back a few years ago in January 2002, Peter was driving along McLeay Island and saw three men attacking and stabbing with a knife, a man and a woman. He stopped and got out to see what was going on and one of the men swung a wooden pickaxe handle at him and knocked to the ground and left him for dead. The men left the scene and disappeared.

He lay on the ground until he was found. His skull was very smashed. He was flown by medical helicopter to a Brisbane hospital. He was in a coma for three weeks. The senior brain surgeon warned his family that he would unlikely never recover. However his mother didn’t accept this and stayed by his bed for there for three and half months but determined that he would survive. With 48 years of age, he had inherited his mothers determination.

He three brain surgeries and was permanently blind in one eye and confined to a wheelchair for seven months. He had been a former trainer with Skillshare for twelve years and a radio announcer. He had now lost his speech and swallowing was dangerous.

After 3.50 months, he returned to his beloved island home .... this proved a dangerous decision. Depressed and alone, he drank and smoked heavily and weight loss and hopelessness affected him. His precious mother came through and rescued him from those dark hours.

In one day she came and took him to her hometown of Newcastle to look after him. However, the battle was not yet won and on top of his alcohol and nicotine addiction, he became addicted to prescribed medications. Determined to survive and accept all the help offered to him, he chose to step away from all addictions. This decision and the help of his mum, saved his life.

In September 2002, he began a course of recovery with the Brain Injury Service (BIS). He experienced the wonderful professional care of the staff of which he will be forever grateful.

After fourteen months he graduated from BIS just as graduated from his wheelchair and walking stick. Headstart came next. Headstart is a group in Newcastle who are linked together as a post recovery group of social activities and friendships. He was invited to join. Supportive staff drew him into social activities and many friendships. As part of Headstart, he wrote these articles below for the Newslink magazine ..... starting with his own story.

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Just click on the files below and they will come up to screen size.

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Recently, Harriet and I went to personally visit Peter on McLeay Island. We drove down to Redland Bay area and caught a passenger ferry over to the island. This section of my personal experiences website: http://www.kenaitken.net records in photographs the events of the day.

See http://www.kenaitken.net/?page_id=2538

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