In this issue:
- 2009 BIAC Bursary Winner Receives Award
- Message from our President
- Message from our Editor
- Make a donation
- From the Desk of the Executive Director, Harry Zarins
- BIAC Submits Brief to Standing Committee on Finance Pre-Budget Consultations
- Quebec News
- Harry Zarins Meets Trevor Greene, Debbie Lepore and Capt. Kevin Schamuhn
- Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia: Advocacy in Nova Scotia
- Richard Kinar Receives Award
Our December 2009 Newsletter Impact – Pathways Ahead (pdf-1MB)
Read past copies in the Newsletter Archive
Slow, but staggering progress
By Anne McIlroy, From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
His voice is raspy, the words come slowly. Trevor Greene says it is because he no longer has the reflex to breathe before he speaks, so he has to remind himself constantly to take in air while he talks.
Yet that he speaks at all, let alone in front of large crowds, as he did in Toronto this week, defies the grim prognosis that doctors described to his fiancée, Debbie Lepore, when he was in a coma after suffering a horrific brain injury almost four years ago. One physician told her to put him in a long-term-care home. She told herself, “They didn’t know Trevor.” She was right.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Vancouver, B.C.) – Peace Warrior, a moving documentary about Canadian soldier Trevor Greene, his fiancée Debbie Lepore and their struggle to recover from Trevor’s traumatic brain injury has won Canada’s top television honour, the Gemini Award for Best Biography Documentary.
Broadcast across Canada by CTV, Peace Warrior follows Trevor and Debbie for more than a year as Trevor undergoes brain injury rehabilitation at the Halvar Jonson Centre for Brain Injury in Ponoka, Alberta, one of North America’s leading rehab programs. Trevor, a captain with Vancouver’s Seaforth Highlanders, was injured while serving in Afghanistan in March 2006. He was sitting at a small village meeting and had taken off his helmet as a sign of respect, when he was hit from behind with an axe to his head. He was not expected to live, and his recovery has been a series of near-miracles, aided in no small part by the fierce dedication and determination of his fiancée Debbie. Read the rest of this entry »
* Peace Warrior will re-run this Saturday night June 6 CTV at 7:00 PM.
* Trevor working hard on his legs and feet. His new orthos going on this week.
* He is already standing with limited pressure on both feet
* In May, Trevor was in Halifax, NS and received an Honorary Degree Doctorate of Civil Law from Kings College (His Alma Mater)
* In May, he also spoke at the World Trade and Convention Centre as one of the presenters related to Motivation, and in Honor of the International Day of The Family
The Halifax Chronicle Herald, TIM ARSENAULT REMOTE CONTROL, Sat. Dec 13 – 5:53 AM
THE STORY of Captain Trevor Greene’s ongoing recovery from a savage axe attack in Afghanistan had a natural appeal for Vancouver filmmaker Sue Ridout.
“I, like just about every other Canadian, remembers very clearly the headlines about Trevor being attacked in the first place. I think it struck all of us at that time. It really stood out in terms of the stories that came back from Afghanistan around that period of time,” she said during a phone interview from Vancouver.
“He wasn’t sort of your normal stereotypical soldier, if there is such a thing. . . . The irony is that he was there really to help the villagers, more so than to be there in the interests of security. He was really there to kind of reach out to them and he was the one, of all the group, that was attacked.”
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Victoria Times Colonist, By Sandra McCulloch, December 5, 2008
To look at Trevor Greene today, his blue eyes sparkling with life and intelligence as he sits in a wheelchair in his Nanaimo home, you’d never guess he’s the same Canadian soldier who was nearly killed on March 4, 2006, at the hands of an axe-wielding Afghan.
The attack horrified Canadians for its viciousness, and left Greene immobile and unable to speak.
Other people caught in similar circumstances might spend years simmering in anger.
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The CTV Original Documentary PEACE WARRIOR, Saturday, Dec. 13 at 7 pm – Intimate, one-hour documentary offers an exclusive look into Captain Trevor Greene’s courageous struggle to recover from a horrific axe attack in Afghanistan.
Former WILL & GRACE star Eric McCormack provides narration
Vancouver, BC (November 21, 2008) – In March 2006, Captain Trevor Greene was ambushed from behind and struck in the head with an axe that plunged deep into his brain as he sat down to talk to villagers in Afghanistan. News of the horrific attack made headlines across Canada, as the Canadian officer who went to the war-torn country to spread peace was instead left fighting for his life. In the exclusive CTV Original documentary, PEACE WARRIOR, premiering nationally on Saturday, December 13 at 7 p.m. P.S.T./E.S.T. on CTV (visit CTV.ca to confirm local listings), Vancouver filmmaker Sue Ridout provides intimate access to Greene’s remarkable journey, as he first fights to survive the near-fatal attack, and then struggles to reclaim some measure of his former life.
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