Brain injury victim ‘talks’ to mom for first time since 1996

In what her mother calls a “Christmas miracle,” a Nova Scotia woman who suffered a catastrophic brain injury in a 1996 car accident communicated one-onone with her mother for the first time in 21 years.

Louise Misner said her 37-yearold daughter Joellen Huntley used eye-motion cameras and software on an iPad to respond to a comment from Misner about her clothes.

Huntley has been severely disabled since she was 15, unable to walk or talk and fed through a tube. She has always responded to family members’ presence by making sounds, but was unable to communicate any thoughts.

The breakthrough occurred during a Christmas Day visit at the Kings Regional Rehabilitation Centre in Waterville, N.S.

“I said, ‘Joellen, I like your new Christmas outfit you got on,’” Misner said Friday.

Misner said her daughter then used the technology to find an icon for a short-sleeved shirt.

“And then she said no, and went to a long-sleeved shirt because she was trying to tell me what she had on.”

“Christmas miracle,” Misner said. “It was God’s way of telling me that she’s finally achieved what she needed to since the accident.”

Huntley was thrown from a car that had swerved to avoid a dog that was running loose along a road in Centreville, N.S., on April 18, 1996.

The accident claimed the life of her boyfriend and a girl who was the sister of the driver.