Eastbayri.com

TIVERTON — He’d sold his Mustang upon moving to San Francisco so it was a motor scooter that Matthew Wolfson used to drive girlfriend Constance (Consey) Beck to work one morning in 2007.

Market Street was slippery right after a rain shower and busy as usual. At one point he veered to avoid a taxi that had come too close. The front wheel caught in a trolley track, the scooter tumbled, its back end spinning out violently, and Consey flew backwards to the pavement.

Mr. Wolfson had injured his hip but when he went to his girlfriend he could see that she was in far worse shape.

“There is nothing to describe the feeling of looking into the eyes of someone you love and not seeing that person anymore.”

Her helmet had smashed where the back of her head had hit and she was in a coma from which she would not begin to emerge for eight weeks. The brain damage was traumatic and her heart had stopped.

But already the first of what Mr. Wolfson calls many miracles had happened.

San Francisco was hosting an anesthesiologists’ convention that week and the scooter had crashed right in front of five doctors walking along the roadside. They kept her alive with CPR until rescuers could arrive.

Shire Brave Award

The two 24-year-olds are 28 now, living in a handicapped-accessible apartment in the new Bourne Mill apartments in north Tiverton not far from where they grew up. (Her mother and stepfather live in Portsmouth, her father in Newport. He’s from Natick, Mass.)

In those years, Mr. Wolfson has seldom left Ms. Beck’s side. She has made enormous strides — they are engaged to be married in fact. Per her wishes, the wedding will happen when she is able to walk down the aisle on her own.

Recently came word that Mr. Wolfson is one of ten winners of an international Shire Brave Award, given by the biopharmeceuticals company to caregivers who have demonstrated “respect, courage, dedication, impact and patience.”

“Matthew has shown true courage and selflessness in caring for his fiancé, and he is fully deserving of this recognition, said Angus Russell, Shire chief executive officer. “The caregiver’s role often goes unrecognized.”

The award comes with a $10,000 prize, money that the couple can certainly use. Savings are long gone, as is his inheritance, though family and friends have been an enormous help.

“I have not been in this alone by any means,” he said. He lists Consey’s courage and extraordinary assistance from her family atop his list of credits.

Anyway, he said, from the moment he saw her lying in the road, his choice was made. “Hopping back on the bike and riding off into the sunset” was never an option.

One milestone at a time

Consey spent those first weeks after the crash utterly lost in her coma, or so it seemed.

One of her doctors said the injury had sent a shockwave through her brain, ripping the neural connections. He likened it to an asteroid hitting Route 95. Repairs, if they could be made at all, would be slow. At first, all that traffic would have to sqeeze through a one-lane road.

Doctors and family tried everything in their search for a sign, a response. Music (Mozart, the Beetles, Pink Floyd), pinching, talking, hugs.

One day, “in the spirit of no stone unturned,” a shaman from Central America (whom Mr. Wolfson had met at grad school), visited her room “in full white garb, feathers and staff.

“He performed several hours of ritual” meant to “call the soul back. “It culminated with the shaman blowing a spray of water into her face, water that had been collected from lakes around the world.

Lo and behold, “she flinched.”

Little more would happen for weeks. Mr. Beck thought he could see faint signs — “It is impossible for anyone who has love in their heart not to see recognition,” but nothing worth noting on the medical charts.

One day an analyst visited to determine whether Ms. Beck qualified for admission to a rehabilitation program.

It didn’t look good, he said. There was no apparent reaction or recognition, little sign that progress could be made.

“And at that moment she flipped him off.” The middle finger gesture was “unmistakable ... That’s why you have to be careful what you say around people in a coma.”

At two months, they gathered her up and flew home to the east coast where she would spend months, then years at nursing homes and rehab centers.

Consey marked recovery milestones, small at first and then more significant.

She began to communicate — one finger for yes, two for no.

Then came a laugh. “We were watching Futurama and we heard this snort through her trach tube. We asked, ‘Did you just laugh? She held out one finger ... Laughing is so big — it’s a sign of humanity.”

Talking began to return, a challenge made more difficult by a jaw injury she had suffered in the crash. Later she was able to move to a wheelchair and now gets herself about in the chair using both arms and legs.

One day, they decided to go to a movie for the first time. Mr. Wolfson showed her the list and she chose ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno.’ “She loved it.”

With ‘Disney Bucks’ she had earned by doing the therapy she hated, the two of them went to Disney World. “She even went on Tower of Terror without me because I’m such a coward,” he said.

Finally came the day that caregivers approved her move from the Grand Islander Center in Middletown to the Tiverton apartment.

“They needed to be certain that she — we — could do it safely” and that her rehab wouldn’t lag.

It has been challenging but the right thing in every way, Mr. Wolfson said.

“There is nothing like a person living in their own home” to spur progress. Beyond marriage, their goal is independence for Consey “and she is getting there.”

There are difficult times, such as when she thinks about things she once loved doing that are beyond her for now — going out with friends and dancing, going to the beach. “She gets frustrated, angry” which in itself is a sign of progress made.

In recent months, Ms. Beck has been doing volunteer work at the Potter League animal shelter and also assists at a rehabilitation center.

And Mr. Wolfson said he must also pay heed to his own situation — figure out “How do I fit in this world?” A risk would be to “get in too deep” to his fiancé’s care to the point that he loses any future ability to earn a living and care for himself, never mind her. “The irony would be if, after all this, I might become a drag on Consey’s future.”

To that end his studies changed direction. He graduates in May with a degree in health care management from Salve Regina University and has applied to a PhD program in public health at Brown University.

He hopes to use what he has learned during these four years helping others deal with caregiving, health care, Medicaid and more. The state has already hired him part-time to do just this sort of work.

Credit for the award, he says, goes to Consey’s mother, Rebecca Vickers, who discovered the Brave awards, and wrote an “incredibly moving” nomination letter.

Any initial cycnicism he may have felt about corporations doing such things “just for show” vanished as he went through the interviews.

“They really do get it, they understand,” he said. “At some point, the professionals have to go home for the night and someone else takes over. I was moved to hear that a company cares about that.”

For more, visit www.ShireBRAVEAwards.com

Mr. Wolfson can be reached through LinkedIn or by e-mail at matthewevanwolfson@gmail.com