SOLDIER ON
Former naval officer and stroke victim raising money for Bruyère, writes Andrew Duffy.
Five years ago, Cmdr. Tim Kerr fell to the deck of his navy destroyer, wracked with seizures. His nearly fatal stroke would leave the military man immobile on his left side. In seven days, his story will be one among 40,000 converging for the capital’s biggest yearly event, the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend.
Five years after suffering a near fatal stroke on board the Canadian destroyer that he captained, Tim Kerr will take part in Ottawa Race Weekend as a measure of thanks to those who helped him reclaim his life.
Kerr, 48, a retired naval commander, will walk the half-marathon with a 50-pound rucksack Sunday to raise money for Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital.
He entered the rehab facility in a wheelchair in July 2012 unable to sit up straight. He needed help with almost every part of his daily routine. His left side had been rendered useless.
Kerr remembers sitting in Bruyère’s cafeteria that first night: An attendant put a bib on him as he had done for his own two children when they were infants. He could barely feed himself. “It really struck me how disabled I was,” he says, “and how big a challenge it would be to get back to the way I was — if I ever could.”
One month earlier, Cmdr. Kerr had been on the bridge of the warship, HMCS Algonquin, as it steamed toward an international naval exercise in Hawaii. The twomonth deployment was supposed to be Kerr’s last before a transfer to naval headquarters in Ottawa.
At 9 p.m., Kerr went for a workout at the end of a long day. The last thing he remembers is jogging on an elliptical trainer.
A maintenance worker found him seizing on the deck of the ship. He was given emergency medical aid, and the ship’s executive officer ordered the stricken commander airlifted to a nearby Australian destroyer with a doctor aboard.
A Canadian Sea King helicopter landed on the ship at night in heavy seas. The doctor who assessed Kerr said he was in critical condition so the Australians turned around and steamed at top speed toward California. As the ship neared the coast, a U.S. naval helicopter picked up Kerr and delivered him to the San Diego naval medical centre.
Kerr woke up in hospital with a piercing headache and an IV in his arm. “I remember not knowing what’s going on: My left side wasn’t working. It was very disorienting.”
Doctors told him he had suffered a severe brain hemorrhage and stroke. He was 43 years old, a physically fit non-smoker with a young family and a fast-moving career. The news was confounding. “It took me a couple of days to come to terms with that,” he says.
Tests would later reveal that the stroke had likely been caused by an irregular vein formation in his brain.
Kerr was flown to Ottawa, where he spent two weeks in hospital before being moved to Bruyère to begin rehab.
His physiatrist, Dr. Christine Yang, decided to first address the officer’s balance issues since therapy staff had to support Kerr to sit.
Kerr worked to rewire his brain in order to keep himself upright with his core muscles. His progress, at first, was slow.
Six weeks after his accident, Kerr still had no movement on his left side and Yang was unsure if he’d ever regain use of his limbs.
The nadir for Kerr came during a birthday celebration for his daughter, Sophie, in early August. She danced around the room, and played with her older brother, James, and mother, Anne. When his family left, Kerr suffered an anxiety attack. “I really despaired at ever being a full-fledged father who could play with his kids, dance with them,” he says. “I remember that being the worst night.”
It was also the turning point. Kerr rededicated himself to his rehab and resolved to return to his family in the best possible condition, whatever that might look like.
After he learned to sit up straight, Kerr began to work on his left leg. But a serious hip injury suffered in 2009 complicated his recovery. Physiotherapists had to devise a system to ease the strain on his injured right hip — it had been shattered in a training exercise — while he learned to walk again.
Meanwhile, in occupational therapy, he went through the laborious process of learning to grasp things with his left hand, lift and manipulate them with his fingers. He made miraculous gains.
After 3½ months, Kerr used a walker to leave Bruyère and return to his Nepean home.
He didn’t need the wheelchair ramp that had been installed.
Kerr continued his physiotherapy as an outpatient, and made such steady progress that he went back to work part-time in January 2013. That summer, he returned to full-time military work with no obvious signs of ever having suffered a stroke. His doctors were astonished. “His stroke was so severe to start with and his rehab outcomes so excellent, they were two extremes,” says Dr. Yang. “I have never seen a case like his.”
Yang believes Kerr’s fulsome recovery was likely due to his age, the plasticity of his brain, and the nature of his stroke, which left him without cognitive deficits that could interfere with his ability to apply rehab lessons. He was also, she says, unusually determined: “He has tremendous mental strength.”
Still, Kerr experienced setbacks. He suffered several seizures — a common side-effect of hemorrhagic strokes — which led to his medical release from the military in the fall of 2015.
A third-generation military man — his father was a Sea King pilot — Kerr now works at Veterans Affairs Canada, where he’s director of the Veterans Priority Programs Secretariat, which helps former soldiers transition to civilian life. He’s grateful to all of those who have helped him: the sailors who made heroic efforts to get him medical aid; the family members and friends who provided unfailing emotional support; and the therapy staff at Bruyère, where he now volunteers.
“I feel I owe them a great debt for what they did for me,” he says. “They’re such an important resource for the community.”
Kerr’s has already raised $5,000 in pledges for Bruyère through the Scotiabank Charity Challenge, and hopes to push that total to $6,000.
He has vowed to add an extra pound to his rucksack for every $100 pledged.
His stroke was so severe to start with and his rehab outcomes so excellent, they were two extremes ... I have never seen a case like his ... He has tremendous mental strength.