A 30 min update of Peace Warrior will be on CTV’s W5 this Saturday, December 4th, 2010 at 7pm. The update will include Debbie and Trevor’s Wedding — Peace Warrior won a Gemini Award for Best Biography Documentary in October 21, 2009

(Vancouver, B.C.) – Peace Warrior, a moving documentary about Canadian soldier Trevor Greene, his wife 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.

Peace Warrior has already won Best Biography Documentary at the Yorkton Film Festival, a CINE Golden Eagle Award, and was a finalist at both the Gabriel Awards and the Freddie Awards in the U.S. Directed by Sue Ridout and produced by Sue Ridout and Sara Darling for Dreamfilm Productions of North Vancouver, the film was written by Sue Ridout and Helen Slinger. It was shot by Director of Photography John Collins and sound recordist Downy Karvonen, and edited by Tim Wanlin. The original music score was composed by Anne Leader and Edward Henderson. The film is narrated by Canadian actor Eric McCormack, best known for his portrayal of “Will” in the long-running U.S. sitcom Will & Grace. Eric has taken a special interest in Trevor’s story and offered to lend his voice to the film.

Since the documentary first aired 10 months ago, Trevor has had surgery on his feet and is making impressive progress toward being able to walk again. An orthopedic surgeon in Victoria, Dr. J. Norgrove Penny, saw the CTV broadcast and offered to do the surgery, which others had recommended against. Dr. Penny is an Order of Canada winner for his work in Africa, and he believed that with surgery and physiotherapy, Trevor’s quality of life could definitely be improved. Trevor works out every day at his home in Nanaimo, B.C. Debbie and Trevor got married in June of 2010.

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.

The 44-year-old harnessed his willpower to the latest neuroscience, to build new pathways to get signals from his brain to his muscles so he could move and talk again.

He can talk, type, sit up and stand. He vows he is going to walk down the aisle at his July 24 wedding. Ms. Lepore said she doesn’t expect that dramatic an entrance. “I’ll be happy if he takes one step.”

Their love for each other, and the role it has played in his against-the-odds recovery, has come to define Captain Greene far more than the attack that damaged his brain when was serving in the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Canadians were horrified at the news that a fighter had driven an axe into his brain, but are heartened by how far he has come – and impressed by the woman who cheered every baby step along the away.

She has put aside her career as a chartered accountant to focus full-time on Capt. Greene’s rehabilitation and takes a supportive role – quite literally – in his physiotherapy by helping to hold him up while he learns to control his muscles.

It takes a lot of willpower to retrain the brain, to put in the hours of physical and occupational therapy he does every day. He said he is motivated by his love for Ms. Lepore and their four-year-old daughter, Grace.

“Willpower is willing your body to do things you can’t do,” he said. “When I was an athlete, I would use willpower to go beyond the pain. Now I’m willing my legs to flex when I push up. It is a conscious thing: I think, now gluteus maximus, now thighs, now calves, like that.”

Sometimes, he said, he can almost feel new pathways forming from the pins and needles in his arms or legs that mean his brain is being activated. His motor cortex, the region of the brain that usually controls movement, was badly damaged in the attack, so he has had to retrain his brain to make his body move.

“It is neuroplasticity,” he explained in an interview this week, before returning to Nanaimo, B.C., where he and Ms. Lepore and Grace live. He had been in Toronto to speak at the inaugural gala for the True Patriot Love Foundation, which supports the families of Canadian soldiers.

“They used to think the brain was like a computer chip. If it was damaged, the chip wasn’t any good any more. Now they say there is a possibility that the brain can compensate. In the back of the skull, where my brains leaked out, it has to compensate for that.”

The neuroplastic revolution, as some call it, stems from discoveries in the 1960s and 1970s that showed how the brain physically changes as we learn, think and move.

This adaptive potential means the brain has the capacity to heal after an injury, to find new ways of doing things. With the right input, it can repair damaged circuits or create new ones.

Capt. Greene said progress is slow.

“I feels like being frozen in an iceberg and slowly thawing out.”

But a breakthrough came earlier this year during an exercise he did repeatedly over several months with his physiotherapist, Bonnie Lamley, and Ms. Lepore. As Capt. Greene sat on the treatment table, each hand grasping an upright pole, the two women would move him into an upright standing position. They did it over and over again. One day, he was able to engage his muscles on his own and feel himself standing.

“That showed the brain was involved and we had stimulated the right pathways,” Ms. Lamley said.

It is a huge step forward to feel the weight of his body pressing down on his feet, feel the ground beneath them.

“That means he is getting sensory input back into his brain,” Ms. Lepore said. Sometimes, when Capt. Green acquires a new skill, it is as if he is remembering something he used to know, he said. But other times it feels like he is learning something new.

“I have forgotten how to walk,” he said.

His progress has been far beyond what his doctors predicted. But the things most of us take for granted, like getting our hand to do what we want it to do automatically, require concentrated effort for him.

It is still early days in the quest to understand how best to help the brain repair itself, and researchers are working on devices and therapies that will help patients recover sight, hearing, balance, speech and movement.

Traumatic brain injury has been described as the signature wound of the U.S. war in Iraq, and some American families have had to lobby so soldiers could get the kind of intensive therapy needed to recover limited movement or the ability to communicate.

Capt. Greene said the Canadian Armed Forces got him the help he needed, and he spent 14 months at the Halvar Jonson Centre for Brain Injury in Alberta.

But that didn’t come until after he spent a year in critical care, during which he nearly died of pneumonia and during an operation to rebuild his skull.

Patients with severe brain injuries usually make the most progress three to four months after they are hurt, said Montreal neurosurgeon Judith Marcoux. Ms. Lepore said she was told not to expect much improvement after the three-year mark.

Yet that’s when Capt. Greene was first able to stand after having surgery to straighten his feet, which had contracted into a pointed position after so long in hospital. Having his feet flat on the ground has made it possible for him to try walking.

Ms. Lepore said she never wanted to look at his X-rays or brain scans, although she knows that surgeon who initially operated on Capt. Greene called it the worst brain injury he had ever seen.

“I think, subconsciously, I never wanted to get discouraged and I might have if I saw how bad it was.”

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.

Peace Warrior has already won Best Biography Documentary at the Yorkton Film Festival, a CINE Golden Eagle Award, and was a finalist at both the Gabriel Awards and the Freddie Awards in the U.S. Directed by Sue Ridout and produced by Sue Ridout and Sara Darling for Dreamfilm Productions of North Vancouver, the film was written by Sue Ridout and Helen Slinger. It was shot by Director of Photography John Collins and sound recordist Downy Karvonen, and edited by Tim Wanlin. The original music score was composed by Anne Leader and Edward Henderson. The film is narrated by Canadian actor Eric McCormack, best known for his portrayal of “Will” in the long-running U.S. sitcom Will & Grace. Eric has taken a special interest in Trevor’s story and offered to lend his voice to the film.

Since the documentary first aired 10 months ago, Trevor has had surgery on his feet and is making impressive progress toward being able to walk again. An orthopedic surgeon in Victoria, Dr. J. Norgrove Penny, saw the CTV broadcast and offered to do the surgery, which others had recommended against. Dr. Penny is an Order of Canada winner for his work in Africa, and he believed that with surgery and physiotherapy, Trevor’s quality of life could definitely be improved. Trevor works out every day at his home in Nanaimo, B.C. but will be traveling to Toronto and Ottawa in early November for Veterans’ Week events.

* 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 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.
-Canadian Soldier Trevor Greene Defies All Odds.
-Nanaimo soldier’s long journey back
-Video excerpts from the TV show
-Defying the odds, Documentary takes an intimate look into Capt. Trevor Greene’s courageous recovery from an horrific axe attack in Afghanistan.
-Watch the Documentary
-Against All Odds, Ottawa Citizen, December 26, 2008

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.”

Ridout heard through a filmmaking colleague who knew a friend of Greene’s that the Sydney-born soldier and his fiancée Debbie Lepore might be willing to participate in a documentary about the attack in March 2006 and the difficulties of treatment.

The hour-long result, Peace Warrior, airs on CTV tonight at 7 p.m. and again on Sunday at 1 p.m.

“It wasn’t my idea. It came to me like a gift,” said Ridout, who begins her film with the ill-fated meeting between Canadian soldiers and villagers. A young man drove a crude axe deep into the brain of the University of King’s College graduate, who had removed his helmet as a sign of respect.

A great deal of footage was shot at a brain injury rehabilitation facility in Western Canada. That’s where Greene went after initial rounds of surgeries stabilized his broken brain. Though the Halvar Jonson Centre doesn’t make a habit of participating in film projects, an exception was made.

“This whole project has had a slightly blessed feeling to it. Somehow when I approached them they didn’t hesitate,” said Ridout.

“I can’t even tell you how many shooting days there were. I haven’t really added it all up. But we became fairly familiar with Ponoka, Alberta. There were three of us — my cameraman, my soundman and me — and we know just about every place there is to eat in Ponoka. There aren’t very many of them.”

Greene, a 41-year-old reserve officer with Vancouver’s Seaforth Highlanders at the time of the attack, is shown making remarkable progress, particularly with his speech. But there are also sections that show him suffering mood swings and struggling with his inability to walk.

“They didn’t want the program to make it seem like brain injury recovery is a walk in the park. They wanted people to understand the reality of just how tough this can be. So they knew that we weren’t going to sugar-coat it.”

Will & Grace star Eric McCormack narrates Peace Warrior. The Canadian-born actor got involved after Ridout took a chance and reached out to the star.

“Trevor and Debbie were huge Will & Grace fans. Before Trevor went to Afghanistan their kind of nightly ritual was to watch Will & Grace,” she said.

“I’d never met Eric but I knew that he had a great reputation for being a warm, caring guy so I just sent him an email and said, ‘I’m making a film and I’ve met these people and they’re huge fans of yours and Trevor’s working very hard to try and recover from brain injury and if you’re in Vancouver this summer at your house would you consider coming to visit him?’

“He wrote back immediately and said, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ ”

Greene has vowed that he’s going to regain the use of his legs so he can walk down the aisle at his wedding. That doesn’t happen in Peace Warrior, which raises the possibility that the story may be continued.

“We’ll have to see. We told Trevor and Debbie a long time ago — 18 months ago when we first met them —that whenever they did actually get married that we’d shoot the wedding. They’ve had different dates at different times for the wedding but now they’re pretty firm on July of 2010,” said Ridout.

“I guess we’ll see what the level of interest is from Canadians, basically. Certainly we’ll shoot the wedding whether I’m going to make a sequel or not.”

Ridout said that Greene’s remarkable recovery could help counter the feeling she has that injured Canadian soldiers are overlooked in the context of the ongoing war.

“I think Trevor’s story is going to reframe that discussion in a very strong way. I think that he has enormous potential to really become a spokesperson, if he chooses to do that, for the community of soldiers who do come back to Canada but come back often terribly injured,” she said.

“He may not say a lot of words all at once, but the words that he does speak are very powerful.”

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.

But Greene, now 44, has found peace through forgiveness. He was released from the Canadian military last month, and now the author of three books and former journalist is writing a book about motivation. It’s a subject close to the heart of Greene and fiancée Debbie Lepore. The couple has faced huge challenges as they cope with the many obstacles of Greene’s recovery, including his having to relearn basic motor skills like talking and walking.

The axe cleaved into the area of the brain that controls his motor functions, leaving him unable to move or talk, although it didn’t affect his cognitive functions.

His goal is to get out of the wheelchair and back on his own feet. He’s already come so far — he can move his legs a little, although the muscles have atrophied over the past 2 1/2 years. His hands are shaky, but he can move them. And he can talk again — soft, slow and measured speech.

He gives the same intense, focused energy to daily therapy that he gave to his former job as a member of Canada’s military reserves.

Greene, Lepore and their three-year-old daughter Grace moved to Nanaimo in September. It’s Lepore’s hometown and there’s plenty of family support around. Their new home overlooks the Strait of Georgia and is on one level, perfect for Greene’s wheelchair.

He’s just happy to be home after spending a year in hospital and then 14 months at an Alberta facility that specializes in his type of brain injury. Now he can focus on family and getting on with life.

He admits it feels “kind of weird” to be the centre of media attention, but he understands the value of getting the message out that he’s achieving his goals and others suffering similar injuries can achieve theirs too.

Greene had no memory of the attack, partly because of the brain injury and partly because he didn’t see it coming.

“I remember the soldier to my left and his spiky hair. It doesn’t make sense because we usually have helmets on.”

That day Greene was sitting down with elders of an Afghan village. To show respect, he took off his helmet and laid down his weapon.

Then, out of the crowd, an axe-wielding teenager rushed at Greene.

Another soldier told Greene he saw hatred, pure hatred in the attacker’s eyes.

“I’m glad I didn’t see it,” said Greene of the blow.

He learned later the attacker had been sent to the area by the Taliban to disrupt relations between Canadian soldiers and Afghans.

The terrible act makes sense to Greene, in a way: “I was in his country in uniform with a weapon. What’s the difference between me and the bad guys?

“He was misled by the Taliban.”

Greene’s colleagues shot the young attacker dead, but the axe had sliced through Greene’s skull and brain.

“The doctors gave him zero chance of recovery,” said Lepore. “They said he wouldn’t come out of the coma.”

Greene had only been in Afghanistan for about six weeks. He had just recovered from minor injuries suffered a couple of weeks before after an improvised explosive device (IED) blew up near his army vehicle. Lepore heard the news about that mishap from a military officer and padre who showed up at the door of their Vancouver home.

But the second time she saw the two visitors on the doorstep, she knew something much more serious had happened.

“I asked if he was coming home and I remember him being kind of quiet, then saying ‘Yes, he’ll be coming home.’”

Now Greene finally is home and living on the Island. Ask him how he is and he smiles and says, “Excellent. I’m home with my family. The food tastes sweeter, the air feels marvellous.”

There’s no telling how far his recovery will take Greene, but he’s willing to put heart and soul into daily workouts.

He’s six feet, four inches tall and used to weigh 205 pounds. Now he’s 185.

Greene is far from frail, however, having weathered two bouts of pneumonia. His cognitive functions haven’t been affected by the injury so he has learned a valuable lesson — to be patient.

“Things happen in good time,” he said.

He’s become more spiritual, as well, and drawn strength from it.

“I’ve never been angry — I’ve just got on with it. I’ll be in therapy for the rest of my life. I have to live my life as well as do therapy.”

His message in the book revolves around the power within every individual.

“The message is ‘You can do anything.’”

The family lives on Greene’s military pension and a trust fund, created from donations from friends and strangers, pays for medical bills not covered by the usual sources.

The public support he’s received is “tremendous,” said Greene.

“It’s amazing, bolstered my spirits and made me think I was not alone.”

He would like other Canadian soldiers to feel the same support: “They’re doing a great job in difficult circumstances. We should be proud of our troops.”

Lepore added: “Trevor always talks about Canadians being the best damn soldiers in the world.”

The writing comes easy to Greene, who spent much of his life documenting other people’s stories. Now that he’s writing his own, “the ideas stack up and fall out of me.”

Months ago he awoke at night with nightmares. Now he wakes up with new ideas for the book.

He firmly believes Canadians should stay in Afghanistan but he’s not sure for how long.

“It’s an insurgency. It will take a generation to turn it around.”

The violence in Afghanistan seems a long away from where Greene is now, reclined in his chair wearing socks his mother knitted for him.

He feels surrounded by love “especially when Grace is here.”

Greene dreams of travelling through Europe but knows right now it would be just too difficult.

Lepore is his rock, stepping in to hook up the winch that transfers him in and out of the wheelchair when therapists aren’t around.

“I didn’t know I could adapt to this,” said Lepore, who trained as a chartered accountant.

She tries not to fill the role of a primary care-giver, believing it wouldn’t be good for their relationship. They plan to marry in July 2010.

“Trevor is a pretty unique, special person. It wasn’t a question of whether I was going to do this, it was just doing it. I had to bring him back.

“In the first 24 or 48 hours after the attack he slipped from stable to unstable and I thought we’d lost him. Then he came back to stable and I had this sense, this intuition that everything is going to be OK. And everything is better than OK.

“Trevor is the same guy I fell in love with. We got lucky.”

smcculloch@tc.canwest.com

The story of Greene’s remarkable recovery is the focus of a CTV documentary to air Dec. 13 at 7 p.m.
© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

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.

Of all the stories to emerge from Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, the axe attack on Captain Greene is among the most shocking. Beloved by friends and family for his larger-than-life personality, Greene, a 41-year-old reserve officer from Vancouver, was attending a routine village meeting or “shura” north of Kandahar when he was attacked by a young Afghani. Greene regularly attended these meetings as he travelled around Afghanistan with an Army platoon, helping the Afghan people rebuild their country. Greene was not expected to live. He spent the next year in Vancouver General Hospital, neary dying several times. Doctors predicted that he would never come out of his coma, let alone speak or have any movement again. Amazingly, he proved them all wrong.

With the unwavering love and support of his fiancée, Debbie, and from a deep desire to ban active father to their young daughter Grace, Greene eventually transfers to a brain injury rehabilitation program in Alberta, where he makes inspiring progress. Through candid interviews with friends,
family and fellow soldiers who witnessed the attack, PEACE WARRIOR builds an intimate portrait of a man whose strong will and positive attitude, combined with his peak physical and mental shape before the attack, allow him to surpass everyone’s expectations, despite his devastating brain injury.

For Canadians who read about the attack on Greene, PEACE WARRIOR is the first glimpse of him since he arrived home in a coma in 2006. The story offers exclusive access to Greene’s harrowing recovery process over an 18-month period and his unfailing determination to one day walk down the aisle with Debbie. The documentary is narrated by Canadian-American actor Eric McCormack, who offered to lend his narration to the film after meeting Greene and immediately being touched by his remarkable story.

PEACE WARRIOR is directed by Sue Ridout, written by Sue Ridout and Helen Slinger, and was produced and developed by Dreamfilm Productions Ltd. in association with CTV Inc.