Calgary teen’s recovery a slow journey after hit and run on problematic stretch of road
Global News
Three weeks after Brandon Taylor was hit by an SUV in a hit and run along a busy Calgary road, his family are still wondering when the 17-year-old will be able to come home.
Three weeks after Brandon Taylor was hit by an SUV in a hit and run along a busy Calgary road, his family is still wondering when the 17-year-old will be able to come home to something that resembles normalcy.
But the road ahead for the family is long.
“We’re in between stages two and three when it comes to the mind being reactivated,” mother Kailey Naugler told Global News on Friday. “His body is moving — his left side, definitely. And he’s starting to move his eyes a little more, but Brandon isn’t quite there yet. It’s just his body reacting.”
Naugler said Taylor’s left side, including his left hand, is much stronger than his right. She said he responds to grabbing items and feeling textures, including her sweater.
“I’ve been wearing the same sweater because he knows by that feeling I’m there.”
Taylor requires the use of a feeding tube and a breathing tube while staying at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, where he gets regular physiotherapy. He’s now in a wheelchair, and the physiotherapists working with him are trying to help him move his limbs more often, part of the work to help him recover from brain injury.
“When it comes to brain injuries, it’s really unpredictable on the length of recovery because it could be the same impact, but it affects everyone differently,” Naugler said.
And with the son now in a wheelchair, the family faces the prospect of having to find an accessible home, ideally near the children’s hospital, to continue to support Taylor.