Student battles to help injured vet walk again
$150,000 needed for exoskeleton to aid Trevor Greene’s recovery
VANCOUVER – Wounded war veteran Capt. Trevor Greene may walk again, thanks to the enormous efforts of a Nanaimo Grade 12 student.
Rebecca Lumley, a student at Wellington secondary school, is using social media to campaign for an Aviva Community Fund award to purchase an exoskeleton for Greene.
The exoskeleton is a cuttingedge bionic device consisting of braces, a motor and computer that straps to the body and lifts, balances and moves it in a walking motion.
The technology is particularly useful to help paralyzed patients with rehabilitation because it puts the body in motion, builds muscle and improves blood flow.
Greene, a Canadian soldier and journalist, was injured in a Taliban axe attack in Afghanistan in 2006 after removing his helmet to show respect to village elders.
Doctors told his wife Debbie that he wouldn’t live; then that he would never come out of a coma; and then that he would be a vegetable and should be consigned to a care home. His extraordinary tale of defying those predictions and fighting first for his life and now to learn to walk again is chronicled in his book, March Forth.
Lumley, whose mother was a military nurse, remembers meeting Greene’s wife and infant daughter when both families lived at the Jericho base in Vancouver.
Six years after the attack, Greene and Lumley were both living in Nanaimo. Lumley said Greene inspired students at her school when he came to speak on Nov. 11.
“We were talking about wanting to create change and have a positive impact. Our teacher, John Mandziuk, pointed out that we didn’t have to wait.”
Mandziuk’s wife, an occupational therapist, had told him about the unique new technology, something she was convinced could help Greene.
Lumley and Mandziuk contacted Berkeley Bionics, which agreed to provide an exoskeleton, the first in Canada, if $150,000 could be raised.
The Aviva competition distributes $1 million in prizes annually for community-enriching projects. Projects are voted on at www.avivacommunityfund.org.