Peter’s time in home was soul destroying

PETER BRADLEY’S life was turned upside down following a motorbike accident at the age of 23.

He was struck by a car coming out of a side road.

His sister Barbara O’Connell, who formed Acquired Brain Injury Ireland on the back of the family’s experiences, recalled: ‘He had done his degree and was doing his final solicitor’s exams. He was engaged to be married. When he woke up, he had lost all of that. He did not remember his fiancée, or his colleagues. He was intellectually sound and could still speak French, but he had forgotten all his university studies.’

She said her brother tried to go back to college, but no longer had the concentration skills.

He spent some time travelling in France. He worked in various sheltered employment settings and then he spent four years working voluntarily on educational projects in the Philippines

While in the Philippines, in 1992, he had the extreme misfortune to suffer a second brain injury, in a car accident, from which he was stretchered to an air ambulance. Back in Ireland, he attended the National Rehabilitation Hospital, but there was nowhere for him to go afterwards, apart from a nursing home, Ms O’Connell recalled.

‘He was sitting around, smoking, watching TV with elderly people. They were lovely people, but he could have a conversation with them one moment, and then the next they would not remember who he was.

‘That’s the difficulty when you are in a nursing home with older people, a lot of who may be confused with dementia or Alzheimer’s. You have a great conversation and they don’t know you in half an hour’s time. That can be soul destroying for a young person.’

She continued: ‘That’s why we set up our first assisted living house in the community, for Peter and a few other guys. He’s still there, making his own choices and spending his own money, with supervision. He’s happy, and leading the best life he can.’