'A brain injury is forever'By LAURA STRICKER, THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 4 hours ago
In 2005, David McGuire spent a week in a coma, the result of a bleed in his brain. Doctors told his family that even if the then 32-year-old woke up, he would probably never walk or talk again.
So, he decided to start running instead.
Six years later, he's spending eight months running across Canada to bring awareness and understanding to the issue of brain injury.
After he was sent home from hospital in 2005, McGuire went to live with his parents. His short-term memory was shot and doing even the most basic tasks was extremely difficult.
"I would basically sit there like a vegetable all day, waiting for my parents to get home," he said. He also faced a serious bout of depression.
McGuire eventually started running on a treadmill his parents had in their house. When his sister, a long-time runner, realized he was running longer distances than her, they signed up for a 2006 marathon in Chicago.
Since April 1 this year, he has been aiming to run a marathon a day, supported by his wife, Mandy, and Melissa Wild, who works with BrainTrust and is the run manager for his A Run to Remember. On Tuesday, they arrived in Sudbury and parked their RV in the Costco parking lot.
"We started in Newfoundland, we did the whole island," said Wild on Wednesday, outside Science North. "We went through Nova Scotia ... We went to PEI and through New Brunswick and then through Quebec -- Quebec City, Montreal, all the major cities on that route. And then we crossed over and went into Ottawa and then down from Ottawa to Kingston and then from Kingston through to Toronto and from Toronto up north, to North Bay and today we're (in Sudbury)."
The run is expected to wrap up at the end of November, about 7,200 kilometres later, in Victoria, B.C.
"A big thing for me at the end of the day is to get some kid to put on a helmet before they go out, hopefully the dad, as well," said McGuire. "The main point here is that we need to create the awareness that a brain injury is forever. It changes the whole definition of who you are and how you think."
He's using the run to focus on getting people to wear helmets because 90% of traumatic brain injuries are preventable.
"I think slowly but surely (the message is getting across). I think it's one of those things that everybody knows, but it's hard to remember to put on your helmet." At the end of the day, McGuire's goal is to "prevent the (brain injuries) that we can prevent and help treat the ones that we can't."
McGuire still has trouble with his short-term memory to this day, which he says is "frustrating.
"There's not a lot I can do ... I'm lucky that I knew how to use technology, so I rely a lot on Microsoft Outlook and Calendar.
"When I was going back to school, I'd have to put down where the class was, actually diagnose where it was, what I needed for that class and how to get home afterwards. So I'd constantly have maps that would take me back home ... but as far as memory loss for me, I need to constantly repeat the same thing over and over and over again, and if I don't do it, even for a day or two, I won't remember it."
Despite the frustrations, McGuire, who lives in British Columbia, tries to keep a sense of humour about the situation.
"On the upside, I can watch movies over and over and over again, which saves you money. Family Guy episodes, always new!" he laughed.
"I try really hard to stay out of (depression), and one of the ways is humour. You've got to laugh at it, right? Otherwise it's just depressing as hell. Life sucks for everybody, not just me. It's still going to suck whether I've got a brain injury or not.
"It changed everything, it just does," he added. "It sucks sometimes, but it's also so preventable, and it's pretty simple. Put on a helmet. It's not worth going through. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone."
McGuire's next major stop is in Sault Ste. Marie, followed by Thunder Bay and a host of smaller communities along the way.
lstricker@thesudburystar.com Twitter: LauraStricker
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Run to Remember
To follow along with David McGuire as he journeys across Canada, visit
Contributions can be made by buying a kilometre for $20 at www.runtoremember.com, or by texting "Brain" to 45678 to make a $5 donation.
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