Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

COURAGE TO COME BACK

After 17 years, a brain injury survivor reunites with the Kamloops neurosurgeon who helped save his life

Jun 22, 2023 | 4:09 PM

KAMLOOPS — 17 years after Dr. Jean-Francois Chevalier helped save his life, Michael Coss had the opportunity to say thank you.

“I had a conversation with my father several years ago and I said, ‘Dad, I want to one day be able to go to Kamloops and meet Dr. Chevalier,’” Coss explains.

In 2006, Coss and his family were travelling the Coquihalla Highway en route to a work-related event in Kelowna when the van they were travelling in left the highway. Michael suffered a traumatic brain injury and was transported to Royal Inland Hospital to receive treatment.

“The goal is to send those guys back to their lives,” Dr. Chevalier says. “Of course, it’s changed. It’s not the same after a severe head injury, like [Michael] sustained.”

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The prognosis wasn’t good. Michael’s parents flew to B.C. from Quebec as soon as they could, to be by their son’s side.

“He was in a coma,” Michael’s father Bob recalls. “Dr. Chevalier, who was attending to Michael, said, ‘I don’t think there’s anything we can do.’ [He] strongly recommended Michael be transferred closer to where he lives, with his wife and two children.”

“Dr. Chevalier was very kind and very human to Bob and I when he first told us of Michael’s condition, and what he thought he’d be like,” Michael’s Mom Suzie explains.

For six months, Michael’s parents remained by his side, with the belief their son could recover. After doing some research, and advocating for Michael, they tried Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, which yielded almost immediate results.

“The time that I remember vividly was when I was carried into the hyperbaric oxygen chamber on a stretcher,” Coss tells CFJC Today. “Back then, I was just awakening.”

“After the second treatment, we saw a small finger moving,” Bob recollects. “Each and every day that my wife accompanied him in the chamber — this is an enclosed chamber under pressure — each day, we saw a small miracle.”

Since then, Michael has worked incredibly hard to recover from his injury. Years of physical therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy have given him a life many thought he’d never have. For Dr. Chevalier, reunions like this one don’t come along that often.

“It’s very rewarding to see him have some quality of life and make some steps forward day after day,” Dr. Chevalier says. “I’m quite happy to see him.”

Since the accident, and through his recovery, Coss has found his reason for being.

“Number One is anything is possible when you believe,” Coss says. “Number Two is this: what is your purpose in life? I now realize what my purpose in life is 17 years after my accident, and that is to give hope, to give people inspiration, and to give people purpose and drive.”