The Path Back

BY JENNY MANZER, BA ’97

It started out as a July hiking excursion on Galiano Island with close friends, a tradition of three years. The group was camping at Montague Harbour and had climbed the surrounding cliffs together as they always did. But that year, in 2012, the ground fell away from under Mitch Lepore’s feet, and the then 19-year-old tumbled 50 feet down the cliff, sustaining a traumatic brain injury.

It was a catastrophic accident, but by chance, expert help was nearby. The head of BC’s Search and Rescue, a firefighter and a physician all happened to be camping at Montague Harbour. Alerted by children in the campground who’d heard calls for help, these first responders kicked into gear to find Lepore, stabilize him and have him airlifted to Victoria General Hospital.

He was in the Intensive Care Unit in a coma for two weeks, the brain trauma unit for two weeks, then moved to a rehabilitation centre in Vancouver. “Brain injuries have a tendency to have an indeterminable timeframe,” he says. “I got told I would be recovering for the majority of the next five years and likely up to 10 years.”

His physical recovery took five years. His left side had been severely affected, and he needed to relearn how to do basic tasks, including walk. Brain imaging indicated that his language centres and executive functioning had been affected, so he knew he needed to read, to re-acquire vocabulary, and he wrote everything down—in fact, he still does. At the same time, his memory of how he used to be remained intact, which was both frustrating and motivating. “I am a very stubborn, very driven person,” he reflects.

He’d begun his studies at University of Calgary before the accident, but after months of rehab, he enrolled at UVic—closer to his supportive family in Tsawwassen. He needed help from the Centre for Accessible Learning initially, but continued without accommodations and even did an exchange in Oslo, Norway. In 2016, Lepore graduated from the Gustavson School of Business.

His in-class public speaking experience served him well when he later became a spokesperson for the Victoria Hospitals Foundation, helping to raise funds for more imaging machines. Lepore did interviews and spoke at black-tie events with hundreds of people. Not all brain-injured people would be capable of that, he notes—and so he wanted to lend his voice.

Lepore, 28, lives in Victoria and works as a manager in digital marketing. Before the accident, he never thought about safeguarding his brain. Now, he knows all about caring for it, such as the value of taking Omega-3 supplements, or the dangers of alcohol to a young, developing brain.

Lepore grew up as an athlete and a hockey player—and he pushed through everything, which you can’t do with brain injuries. “It’s so tedious in the way that you recover—it’s very much about listening to your own body, really learning how to listen to yourself and not pushing too hard.”

Now he looks back on what happened to him as part of his journey. It made him who he is today. And he is grateful to everyone who helped him. “There was a lot of good luck involved, and there were a lot of people who carried me along the way.” T