NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Don Brunelle waves to family and friends after being brought home from a 90-day stay in hospital following a car crash. Brunelle’s wife, Brenda, right, holds back tears and the family dog, Rascal, gets a free ride as neighbours welcome him home.
On some level, I knew I was very close. It was just as much of a feeling as it was a vision. I wasn’t afraid at all, but I knew I had a clear choice to make.
Between imagining he was tending his garden and walking his dog, Don Brunelle made a choice.
Brunelle had been in a coma for nearly a month when the image of a man he believes was St. Daniel came to him.
“He gave me a choice, to either go with him or come home. And I would have begged him, if I had to, to come home.”
Brunelle, 64, returned to his Windsor home Friday after spending three months in hospital. On May 26, a ride in a friend’s new Corvette on May 26 ended with the car wrapped around a hydro pole.
The driver of the Corvette, Isaac Resendes, 64, of Wheatley, is charged with stunt driving and driving while impaired.
Brunelle suffered a broken sternum; broken ribs; broken vertebrae; a lacerated spleen, liver and kidney; a collapsed lung; a broken wrist; a crushed pelvis; internal bleeding; blood infections; two brain bleeds; a pulmonary embolism; severe pneumonia and bruises to much of his body.
Brunelle’s wife, Brenda, called his recovery a miracle.
“Three months ago, they didn’t believe he was going to live,” Brenda said. “I was going minute-byminute, three months ago. Two months ago, he was going hourby-hour.”
Shauna Carter, a nurse practitioner at Hotel-Dieu who has worked closely with Brunelle, said he overcame his injuries “phenomenally well.”
“As someone who’s seen many other patients with similar traumas, I would say that, to see all the injuries listed on paper, then to see this person in front of you, his recovery was nothing short of being remarkable,” Carter said.
Brunelle said, while unconscious, he somehow knew he was near death.
“On some level, I knew I was very close,” Brunelle said. Of his encounter with St. Daniel, he said, “It was just as much of a feeling as it was a vision. I wasn’t afraid at all, but I knew I had a clear choice to make. And I chose to come home.”
Brunelle, a father of four with his sixth grandchild on the way, knows his life has changed. He’s still unable to walk.
“But I’m going to make the best of it,” Brunelle said. “And try to take on the same challenges that are there in front of me with all my might. And get back to being Donnie again, you know?”
Brunelle said he was anxious to be home, back with his wife and their dog Rascal.
Brenda equipped their home with a wheelchair ramp and an accessible shower, and arranged for daily support workers.
When Brunelle returned home, friends and family released 64 green and white balloons: 64, symbolizing the birthday he fought to make it to while in hospital, and green and white for St. Patrick’s Day, honouring the day he and his wife were engaged and, later, married.
The hospice wellness band played Wild Horses — a tune that has become the Brunelles’ theme song.
“Once he became aware of why he’s here, who I am and what’s happened, he sings to me each and every time I enter the room, the song from the Rolling Stones, Wild Horses Couldn’t Keep Me Away, ” Brenda said.
“And then he usually adds at the end, ‘600 horsepower couldn’t either’ because a Corvette has 600 horsepower.”
It won’t be a permanent homecoming, Brenda explained, because once her husband of 22 years is strong enough, he’ll return to Hotel-Dieu for in-patient rehabilitation.
“I have such tremendous support from family and friends, neighbours,” Brenda explained. “There’s nothing medically we can do for Don at this point that can’t be done at home.”
Since the crash, neighbours Dave and Alice Wilds have watched Rascal, the family pup, every day.
“We’re going to be there to help Don and Brenda like we have been,” Dave Wilds said. “We just love them to death. We’ll be there for them — they’re gonna make it. This is a big step for Don, the fact that he is out of the hospital now.”
Around 100 loved ones surrounded Brunelle and Brenda on Friday. When the door to the transport vehicle opened, there was not a single dry eye in sight.
“I’m elated with the reception,” Brunelle said. “I can’t tell you how much it’s good to be home. Just fantastic. I never expected this.”
Growing emotional, he added: “I’m where I’m supposed to be.”