Christmas is usually a joyful time and this year East End resident Nathan Brooks and his relatives have a lot to celebrate because the 29-year-old is home for the holidays after almost dying in a freak accident.
Brooks, also known as ‘Big Soup’, was involved in a tragic truck incident in July when the dump truck he drove crushed his head while he was repairing it.
He sustained a traumatic brain injury in the accident.
Today, however, he is on the road to recovery after being released from hospital recently.
“Being home with my mother and grandmother, it’s the best, it’s amazing,” Brooks said as he gently squeezed his mother Sherryann’s hand during a recent interview with the Cayman Compass at his High Rock home in East End.
Fight for life
Just being able to say those words and be home for the holidays is a Christmas miracle for the trucker who defied the medical odds.
Brooks, who spent more than four months in hospital, says he knows he’s “quite lucky to have a life”.
“ Things have been quite difficult, [but] I managed to gain life. I’m slowly healing, but it’s a long road to recovery,” he said.
He says he is thankful to have his mother Sherryann Brooks and friends like Nathan Panton, whom he considers a brother, at his side as he journeys towards a full recovery.
“ I have the most amazing mother I could to ask over anybody. One day, when I get better, I’m gonna make it up to her. I’m gonna be the best son. I’m gonna be going to work and she’s gonna be relaxing,” he said lovingly.
Brooks, whose speech is slightly slurred, has lost vision in one eye and hearing in one ear as a result of his injuries.
This, however, has not changed his jovial personality nor his positive outlook on life. He joked with his mother and friends during the interview, saying that his “warden,” a name he gave his mom, would not let him give up.
Brooks said he has no memory of the accident and only remembers waking up in the hospital.
He recounted waking after surgery in a darkened room and panicking. However, he said, a nurse came in and calmed him down and told him to ring the call button if he needed to.
“ I went to sleep again for a good while, and when I wake up, my mother was in the room, and when I saw her there, everything, every worry I had, went. Everything went. Everything my mind could think of went out the door. I was just so happy to see her,” he recalled.
Long road ahead
Brooks has been regaining his mobility, but he tires quickly.
He said he did not know if he would have had to spend Christmas in a hospital bed, but when he was told he could go home, it came as a relief.
“I was in the hospital every day, just blankly watching TV in a way and then my mother said, ‘Hey, son, we going home.’ I started crying because I couldn’t believe it. It was emotional. She held me and said, ‘Son, don’t cry. Be happy we going home,'” he said.
Brooks’s mother Sherryann, a retired 911 dispatcher, said being able to have her son home is a wish come true.
She said the last few months have been difficult, but she knew her prayers would be answered and she would have her son back with her.
“I’m just grateful, grateful that he’s alive,” she said tearfully.
She laughed that she was happy to be called warden, because she pushed her son to fight and to keep doing his physiotherapy, “whether he felt like it or not”.
“With a lot of pushing, he’s gained a lot of strength,” she said. “I never thought it would have been so soon, but I knew he was coming home. ‘Cos from when the doctor said, that it would have been a miracle if he had opened his eye [after the accident]. I said ‘No, my baby was going to walk home.'”
After that conversation, she said, she went into Brooks’s room and said to him, “Nathan, we are [going to] prove them wrong, you’re going to walk out of here.”
And when they were ready to leave the hospital, she said, Brooks walked out.
Community support
She said she does not like to think how her son looked when she got to the hospital the day of the accident, bursting into tears as she recalled the sight.
“No parent is supposed to see their child in that condition. I looked at him and I said, ‘Nathan, you gonna pull through because we have a pact that you’re supposed to bury me, not the other away around. And I meant I was not going to bury him,” she sobbed.
As she wiped away tears, Nathan reached over and held his mother’s hand.
His friend Panton said it had been hard seeing his buddy in that condition.
“All the built-up emotion came out, knowing that my closest brother was there on [his] death bed,” he said. But, he said, he knew Brooks would fight for his life.
Panton started a fundraiser to assist the family with medical expenses, which the Compass featured, and he said the response from the community was heartwarming.
“ I really believe that Caymankind is still here,” he said.
He said he knew he had to do something to help the family and he was grateful to all who donated the more than $8,000 that was raised.
Panton said their small but tight circle of friends includes Alex Green, Stephen McLaughlin and Morgan Dixon.
When the accident happened, he said, everyone chipped in to take care of Brooks and his mom, and now that he is home, “ it’s the best gift I can ask for”.
He’s happy that Brooks will be with their group of friends at his house, to play dominoes and tell jokes this holiday season.
Panton said he does not want to hear the phrase ‘red-code’ again, which is what his friends usually say when someone is seriously hurt.
The truck that Brooks was injured while repairing now sits in his front yard. His mother says she cannot look at it.
Brooks says he doesn’t think he can look at it either and is doubtful he will drive trucks again.
Panton said their friends have come together to fix the truck and plan to sell it next year.
He said the fundraiser is still continuing and the family will need further help with Brooks’s treatments and rehabilitation.
Brooks said he appreciated everyone who came to their aid and helping take care of him and his mom.
“I’m sending all love to every one of you,” he added.
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