‘Walking miracle’ stuns medics

A brain-injured patient doctors thought at one stage would not survive stunned medics by getting out of bed and walking to the toilet herself.

Now Michelle Trott is a volunteer worker at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, where she worked as a care assistant for around a quarter of a century before falling ill.

Capri Smith, the activities director for the Continuing Care Unit (CCU) and a long-time friend and colleague of Ms Trott’s, added: “In all my years working with CCU patients, I have never seen someone who was bedridden stand up and walk again like that.”

Ms Trott, 50, of Pembroke, said — although doctors at specialist units in the US had several times thought she was going to die — she later recovered almost fully while a patient back home at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

She was finally discharged home late last year — and has since become a regular feature in the CCU, where she spent several years as a patient.

Ms Trott said: “Six years of my life, I don’t remember — I can remember the last two years, but nothing else. The doctors don’t know why I got up and walked. I don’t know why.

“I was doing physiotherapy, occupational therapy, all of that, but I was still using a walker.”

Ms Trott took ill with a build-up of fluid on the brain in 2003 — she said hitting her head on a TV at work and later suffering a head injury in a car crash may have caused the problem.

She added: “I had fluid on the brain and I had seizures, but my children told me that. I don’t remember.”

Ms Trott was operated on to reduce the pressure on her brain and drain the fluid — but had to go back and forward to the US for specialist treatment for several years after that.

She said: “I took a turn for the worse a few times, so when the doctors in Detroit came in they said ‘don’t do anything, just make her comfortable’. They just gave up on me.”

Ms Trott, however, recovered and was eventually airlifted from Detroit back to Bermuda in 2009 and admitted to the King Edward, where she was mostly bedridden until she got up and walked to the bathroom on her own last year.

She said: “I was in bed and called for the nurse to go to the bathroom. The nurse took a long time to come.

“In the meantime, a voice, a spirit, came to me and told me to stand. When I stood up, I didn’t wobble — the voice said ‘walk’ and I walked.

“I walked and went to the bathroom, came back, sat on the bed and I was crying.”

Ms Trott added: “By the grace of God, I got up and walked. The nurse couldn’t believe I’d walked to the bathroom myself. 

“All day, I was walking from the bed to the window and everyone was crying.

“I was doing it all day to prove I could do it on my own.”

Ms Trott said: “I now come back and volunteer — I feed the patients their breakfast in the morning, do the menus and feed them lunch. 

“And I help with activities in the afternoons like arts and crafts.”

Ms Trott paid tribute to the staff in the CCU unit who looked after her as she struggled to regain mobility and recover from the brain trauma.

Colleen English, the clinical supervisor for medical social workers at the hospital, told the hospital’s Communique magazine: “I am filled with pride and admiration. 

“All I can say is she is a walking miracle.”