A WARRIOR’S HEART
Retired colonel Greg Hug was paralyzed in a freak mishap in 2016. Military comrades are trying to buy him a wheelchair-accessible van so he can ‘better enjoy life.’
The military comrades of a paralyzed tank commander have launched a fundraising campaign to put him back on the road again.
The Friends of Greg Group wants to raise $75,000 to buy a wheelchair-accessible van so that retired colonel Greg Hug can have more freedom and independence two and a half years after a body surfing accident left him profoundly paralyzed.
“When we heard about his unfortunate accident, a lot of his friends were asking, ‘What can we do to help?’” said retired air force lieutenant-colonel Jacques Michaud, a member of the Friends of Greg Group.
“We want him to better enjoy life,” he said.
The group has raised almost half the money required to meet its target since the online campaign was launched earlier this month.
Michaud said the passenger van, equipped with a roadside lift, would give Hug the ability to spend more time at home, to visit family and friends and to attend more movies, museums and military events.
A retired Canadian Forces army officer, Hug has been a patient at The Ottawa Hospital since February 2016, when a rogue wave on a Barbadian beach slammed him into the sand, fracturing bones high in his cervical spine. Such an injury is often fatal, but Hug was rescued by another swimmer, resuscitated on the beach by two doctors from Toronto and rushed to hospital. Within 36 hours, he was on a medevac flight back to Ottawa.
At first, Hug required a ventilator to breathe and could only communicate by blinking. But, with military discipline and unshakable resolve, he has learned to speak again and to breathe with the assistance of an implanted pacemaker that contracts his diaphragm and expands his ribs.
The pacemaker was installed at The Ottawa Hospital in a first-of-its-kind operation in July 2016.
He has lived in the hospital’s intensive care unit for most of the past two and a half years because of repeated health setbacks.
“It has been kind of frustrating that way. I’m still trying to escape the hospital,” Hug, 65, said in an interview.
Hug commanded an army tank squadron and Lord Strathcona’s Horse, an armoured regiment, during his military career. In his final posting, he served as special adviser to the deputy chief of defence staff.
After 25 years in the military, Hug launched a second career as a project manager, then started his own firm, MAGI Consulting Inc., a strategic planning and training company.
He retired in 2014 to focus on family, travel and volunteer work. In early February 2016, he flew with his wife, Maria, to Barbados as part of a trip that was supposed to continue to New Zealand.
A wave on the southeastern shore of Barbados changed everything. After the freak accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, Hug mourned the loss of his favourite activities — cycling, swimming, skiing, fishing and hunting — and began planning how to get out of the hospital.
He has battled a series of medical complications while trying to put together a personal-care team that would allow him to live at home in Stittsville. He requires round-the-clock care.
“I was close to getting out of the hospital a year ago at this time, but had a major setback in early December. I was hallucinating for two weeks and I lost touch with reality,” he said.
Hug recovered from that episode and was again on the path toward being discharged when he began to experience extreme blood-pressure fluctuations. Several times in recent months, he has lost consciousness as his blood pressure crashed.
Medical officials are still trying to address that issue. “One of the challenges is just the amount of time it takes to get answers,” he said.
Hug said a wheelchair-accessible passenger van would give him and his wife more flexibility than Para Transpo. “It would make a big difference in terms of where we can go … and how often,” he said.
Among other things, Hug wants to attend a reunion next September at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston. It will mark 50 years since he entered the national military university.
Jacques Michaud, who met Hug at military staff college, says his colleague’s steadfast campaign to rebuild his life has been inspirational. “It should give courage to people in similar conditions that, with determination, there is life after such a terrible accident,” Michaud said.
Details of how to donate to the Friends of Greg Group campaign can be found at mobilegreg.ca.