Runner puts the spotlight on brain injuries | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun
Bitterness and disappointment in Ontario’s health services motivated a brain-damaged man to jog across Canada, running roughshod over the systemic failures and stigma that once held him back.
On a mission to raise awareness for brain injury prevention, David McGuire is now kilometres away from the helpless condition he found himself in following a massive stroke six years ago, living at his parents’ house in his mid-30s and unassisted by the state.
The fuel behind his journey?
“Anger and frustration,” he said. “What I found was, similar to a broken leg, they fixed you and then they sent you home. My case was sort of unique but I think it represents the way we’re moving.”
In 2005, McGuire, 38, suffered a traumatic stroke, fell into a coma and had a portion of his scull temporarily removed and placed in liquid nitrogen.
Doctors told him he would never talk or walk again.
Since then, he has overcome the impairments resulting from the blood vessel rupture through running — a marathon per day for the next two months — in spite of permanent short-term memory loss and aphasia, a language processing disability.
“I started yelling and screaming to anyone who would listen ... I bitched and whined, but I also grew up with the idea that you can’t complain about anything if you’re not willing to do anything about it,” he said.
McGuire partnered with the non-profit Braintrust Canada group to launch “A Run to Remember” — named due to his memory impairment — from St. John’s, Nfld., in April.
He’ll jog into Toronto around July 23. His cross-Canada journey, which has taken him through six provinces so far, seeks to raise funds and awareness for head trauma prevention and research.
For more information, visit www.runtoremember.com or click on the link to see McGuire in action.
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