The Courage To Come Back Awards Past Recipient Stories

These are the stories of The Courage To Come Back Awards. Each year six people are honoured for their courage to overcome and recover from illness, injury or adversity.

2011

Jerome Bouvier, 52 of Port Coquitlam, has been named the 2011 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Addictions category. Read more about Jerome >

Amanda Schell, 41 of Squamish, has been named the 2011 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Mental Health category. Read more about Amanda >

Victoria Waters, 54 of Nelson, has been named the 2011 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Social Adversity category. Read more about Victoria >

Captain Trevor Green, of Nanaimo, has been named the 2011 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Physical Rehabilitation category. Read more about Trevor >

Curtis Baldwinson, 17 of Surrey, has been named the 2011 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Youth category. Read more about Curtis >

Dr. Graham Bryce, 44 of Vancouver, has been named the 2011 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Medical category. Read more about Dr. Bryce >

Recipient in the Addictions category: Jerome Bouvier

Former drug addict honoured for helping PoCo youth

When a doctor told Jerome Bouvier that he would never stand up again, never take another single step, he didn’t cry. His mom, his brother and his nurse were all in the hospital room and it was they who shed the tears. Bouvier only asked for a few hours alone. Not long after, in the months following a 1983 water skiing accident that smashed his spine and paralyzed him from the chest down, he sat in a wheelchair for the first time.

He didn’t cry then either. He put the chair into a wheelie and roared around the hospital ward. He was OK with it. “I took it. I just accepted it,” said Bouvier, who is the recipient of the Courage to Come Back Award in the addictions category.

After that, he went back to his life. He was 23 and he returned to the California race track where he trained Standard bred horses. He mucked stalls in his wheelchair and he drove horses on the track from a buggy he designed. He did this despite being told he would have to get a desk job. “I was exploring (the wheelchair). I was wondering what the hell this was all about,” he said.

“I fell down stairs. I was dragged through bushes by horses. I was in accidents. I did all kinds of weird stuff. Everything was different and I explored every aspect of that. I went right back to what I was doing before I got hurt, I just did it sitting down all the time.”

And part of that was returning to using drugs — namely cocaine and at an alarming rate. He puts it like this: Cocaine was his best friend, there to celebrate the good times and there to help survive the bad times. And it was with him the day he got injured. He had been partying at a river shore with friends in California, not far from Sacramento where he was working at a race track. “We were flying up and down the river,” he recalled. “The river T-eed, the boat went left, I went straight, the ski caught and shot me out. I somersaulted across the river and crashed into the rocks.”

He’d been using drugs since he was a teenager in Manitoba, when he wanted to fit in and join the cool kids at the high school bush parties. Later, four-day cocaine binges were common. He would run four-miles in the heat until he passed out. He took up stripping on weekends for extra cash and because it was fun.

For Bouvier, now 52, life was extreme — until a combination of experiences made him think that cocaine wasn’t the friend he thought it was. His withdrawal from drugs was years-long and gradual. He never attended any meetings or entered rehabilitation. He doesn’t know any specific dates and is offended by the term “clean” because it implies he used to be dirty.

A year and a half out of the hospital, Bouvier got a strange phone call from a friend who was a heroin addict who had been trying to kick his habit. Bouvier went to his house to check on him and found him passed out between the fridge and the wall, needles and heroin strewn about. He looked around. He saw a set of feet sticking out from under the bed. It was the heroin addict’s teenage daughter. She’d fatally overdosed on heroin.

“I threw myself out of my chair, dragged myself over and pulled her out from underneath the bed. She was purple,” he said. He remembers shouting at her, “You can’t go,” and he remembers the paramedics simply stopping their efforts to revive her. “She stays with me everywhere I go. Her eyes — when I look I always see them,” he said.

That didn’t stop him from using but it was a step forward. He became a media darling at U.S. race tracks. Everyone wanted to write about and photograph the wheelchair-bound horse trainer, who would hose down his wheels every night so his chair wouldn’t smell of manure. It was through that publicity that two kids from Delaware sought him out for a conversation. They shared experiences over a few hours and when they left one said to him: “You should be doing something else with your life.”

Another step.

Bouvier finally walked away from his best friend in the late ‘80s. He was in a Garden State Park, New York tack room talking with a friend about getting cocaine and he thought: “I can’t do this anymore.” He now says: “I can’t explain it.” In the years that followed he worked racing in Quebec, finished his high-school education, moved back to B.C. and graduated in 1991 from Douglas College with a degree in the Child and Youth Care Counselling program.

He was the director of a youth crisis intervention program in California for five years before he took over as executive director of PoCoMo Youth Services Society, an outreach program for troubled teens in the Tri-Cities. He works on a shoestring budget, is constantly applying for grants and asking for money because he has no core funding. It’s important work, he says, he just wishes someone would notice and relieve some of his financial pressure. “Twelve to 18 is the forgotten population. We’re losing kids,” he says. “It’s not okay.” Bouvier says he’s been blessed to see life from two perspectives in one lifetime.

“(I was) a middle-class white boy, standing up, had the whole world in front of me. Didn’t know what racism was, didn’t know what discrimination was,” he said “And then to do it from a chair? All of a sudden I was less than, I was excluded, not able to get into places.” He says that next to life’s wounds are the gifts and he’s learned many things about the power of the human spirit. “The power is inside ourselves to stand up to adversity, to move forward,” he said. “I think a lot of us forget that and sometimes we have to be reminded that we are powerful.”

Written by Lora Grindlay, The Province

News 1130’s John Ackermann profiles Jerome Bouvier. Listen >

Recipient in the Mental Health category: Amanda Schell 

She suffered voices, horrors in silence

Amanda Schell learned early on to ignore or explain away the voices in her head and later to try to drown them out with alcohol and drugs, living for years in fear, shame and denial. Decades later, she learned she suffers from schizophrenia and has come to use all her experiences, good and bad, to help others with mental illness. Her work raising awareness about mental illness within the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has earned her the Courage to Come Back award.

"If I knew back then what I know now, it wouldn't have been so scary," said Schell, 41, who lives with her husband of 23 years and their two sons in Squamish, where she works as a part-time head cashier for a chain store. She's philosophical about her recovery. "It gives me a sense of purpose and an understanding that everything happens for a reason. And I now know this was God's plan for me all along," she said. "I hope I can inspire someone else."

From her Squamish office overlooking the mountains, Schell recalls how, as early as Grade 1 or 2, she'd wake up thinking her room was filled with ghosts, skeletons and spiders. She'd hide under the blankets and wouldn't tell a soul. She had her first auditory hallucination at age 12 on a canoe trip. She was on the way to the washroom in the middle of the night when she heard a woman singing a haunting melody and could hear the twigs rustling in the woods. When she shared her terror with her camping pals, they concluded she'd heard a ghost.

As if there was always a party in the other room, the voices and noises became more frequent until she was forced to get help. Schell was adopted and grew up in a loving, religious family near Toronto.

But her illness had her believing she had psychic powers or was being pursued by demons, and she had difficulties concentrating at school. She was bullied. When she was 16, her solution was to run away from home to live in Toronto. She didn't have contact with her parents for three years. "I didn't want them to worry," she said, wiping away tears. She soon learned her McDonald's job wages didn't go far. She ended up at a youth hostel and working at a bar after lying about her age. "I got a sense of belonging in the bars, of fitting in," she said. "I started drinking every day, using drugs every day."

Schell moved to Sarnia, Ont., at 17, after meeting her future husband, John, at a David Wilcox concert. Within a year, they got custody of John's son Johnny, married, and had two sons. Schell quit the drugs, alcohol and bar life to work in retail and raise her boys. She returned to church, but the hallucinations intensified. "I kept it to myself," she said. "That's part of the illness, the shame. But I would call my husband and tell him he's got to come home because the stereo's haunted. He didn't really understand what was going on." Then one day John called the pastor to say Schell thought Jesus was telling her she was better off not knowing Him. On the pastor's advice she got help for the first time, at age 23 and pregnant with her second child.

She spent two weeks in a psych ward in Sarnia, and left with meds and no insight into what was happening. "I told them what they wanted to hear so I could leave," she said, believing the medical staff to be part of a conspiracy to harm her. She stopped taking the meds when she got home because she was pregnant and the hallucinations became visual. "I was seeing coloured fireballs shooting through the sky," she said.

After moving to Squamish 16 years ago, Schell ended up in the psych ward again, the first of many times, and was for the first time diagnosed as schizophrenic. "I was scared," she said. "No one explained to me what it was. All I knew about it was what I had heard on horror movies and from campground ghost stories. I thought I was being punished." She eventually got a case worker and psychiatrist, and began the long, slow recovery. "I started getting my emotions back," she said. "Before that, everything was flat." Before long, Schell was volunteering at the drop-in centre and advocating for more mental-health services in Squamish.When the voices became less frequent, she stepped up her advocacy, talking publicly about her illness to help others. She also returned to one of her favourite pastimes, singing karaoke, and landed a part-time job hosting karaoke at the local pub. She started to fit into the community and felt accepted, liked and loved. Her new tools helped her through the grief of losing their eldest son, Johnny, who drowned, and she emerged with renewed resolve to tackle her advocacy role.

She earned her high-school degree, trained as a peer support worker and eventually ran a peer support program in Squamish. She is able to reach out and tell her story to others by speaking to high-school students to try to dispel some of the stigma and shame around mental illness. Through her work, Schell discovered her knack for detailed multitasking necessary for the events she organizes, a skill noted in her letters of support: "She is a great communicator and is very detailed and organized," said Denise Rittberg of the Rotary Club. She has a huge capacity for planning ahead, organizing and following through," said Angela Guy of Squamish Mental Health and Addictions. "Put her behind a microphone and stand back -because Amanda becomes Amanda the entertainer," said Giovanna Zammit of Vancouver Coastal Health.

Written by: Susan Lazaruk, The Province

News 1130's John Ackermann profiles Amanda Schell. Listen >

Recipient in the Social Adversity category: Victoria Waters 

Sexual-abuse victim refused to stay silent

Victoria Waters knew the decision to go public about the years of sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her guardian uncle was going to be difficult, especially since he was a prominent businessman in the East Indian community in Chilliwack. But she knew she would have to endure the public scrutiny of her life as a childhood victim of sexual abuse to shine a light on her family's dark secret and move past the pain. "You really have to leave your dignity at the door of the courtroom," said Waters, 54, who lives in Nelson with her husband and two daughters. "I turned myself inside out."

How she was able to cope with her abusive past, and to show others they can do the same, has earned Waters the Courage to Come Back Award in the social-adversity category. Her story, sadly, isn't finished. Waters is still fighting to collect more than $400,000, which the courts awarded her three years ago.

Despite B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nancy Morrison praising Waters' courage in bringing her uncle Joginder Singh Bains and his wife Darshan to court, and finding him liable for repeated assaults on Waters, the Bainses refuse to pay. Waters was discouraged to learn it was up to her to pursue collection in the civil court system. "Victims shouldn't be left to try to collect from their abusers," she said. Waters, who was given the name Victoria at birth by hospital nurses before receiving her Sikh name, Karamjeet Kour Singh, lost her mother in a car accident when she was young.

She and a younger brother were sent by their father to live with Bains, a prominent Sikh leader in the Fraser Valley, when she was nine. The abuse, which included beatings and oral and anal sex, lasted until she left the home after graduating high school. When, as a 12-year-old, she begged her aunt not to leave her alone with her uncle because of his abuse, the aunt, aided by the girl's grandmother, responded by taking her to have a contraceptive device fitted.

Waters said she made the decision to sue her uncle and aunt because she realized she wasn't alone and hoped her example would inspire others to do the same. "My lawyer's been contacted by South Asian women," she said. "He told me he still gets calls because of my case." Waters said she supports a proposal to pass the Uniform Civil Enforcement of Money Judgments Act by the B.C. Law Reform Group, which calls the system for enforcing money judgments in B.C. "archaic, fragmentary and inefficient." She also has publicly spoken about her case.

Her daughter, Kaitlind Waters, who nominated her mother for the award, said, "[My mother is a] woman who courageously stood up to her family in the name of justice . . . and who has devoted her time, energy and heart and soul to being the voice of others who have suffered from childhood sexual abuse. "This subject is not only taboo in her South Asian background, it is a difficult subject for most victims to talk about," she added.

When Waters spoke at a forum on the issue of violence against women in the South Asian community, despite several Sikh elders from trying to stop her, she received a standing ovation. There was a long lineup of women who wanted to share their stories with her afterwards.

"As my mother took the patience and time to chat with them privately, I could see the look on their faces of relief," said Kaitlind. Waters said she needs to collect on the judgment to have closure because winning a public case against her uncle and aunt wasn't enough. "The only thing that hurts them is the money," she said. 

Written by: Susan Lazaruk, The Province

Recipient in the Physical Rehabilitation category: Captain Trevor Greene

Five years after an Afghani teenager attacked Capt. Trevor Greene’s head with an axe, Greene is still alive and still making a difference in the world, despite what doctors predicted at the time. Not only did Greene survive, against all odds he came out of a coma. Against all odds he avoided being left in a vegetative state. Against all odds, he has been able to stand on his own. He wants one day to walk again.  Greene’s determined forward march in his recovery against his massive brain injury has earned him the 2011 award in the physical rehabilitation category.

“Anything is possible,” he said. “My story is going to show people how much is possible.” Life changed dramatically for Greene on March 4, 2006, in a village outside of Khandahar, Afghanistan, where he was preparing to speak with elders about how the Canadian army was there to help rebuild their country by constructing wells, schools and roads. He had removed his helmet as a sign of respect. The athletic former journalist and published author of two books, who is also fluent in French and Japanese, is now on a different path, which involves two and a half hours a day of physical rehabilitation.

“I call it a marathon of baby steps,” said Greene by phone from his Nanaimo home, which he shares with his new wife, Deborah, and their six-year-old daughter, Grace. The marathon began in a U.S. military hospital in Germany, where he had several brain surgeries to remove bone. It continued at Vancouver General Hospital, where over a year he had several surgeries to rebuild his skull. He almost died several times from blood clots, bacterial infections and pneumonia.

Doctors saw no hope for him to improve and recommended Deborah find a care facility for him. He was turned down by G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre because it wasn’t prepared for the level of nursing care he would require.

Undeterred, the couple and their daughter Grace moved to Ponoka, Alta., so he could rehab at the world-renown Halvar Jonson Centre for Brain Injury. Greene spent 14 gruelling months in Ponoka learning again to speak, smile and move his arms and hands before moving to Nanaimo. Now he pushes himself physically with the help of Deborah, his physiotherapist and an occupational therapist to make progress through endless repetitive movements. His goals are “just to increase what I did before. If I (stand) for eight minutes, I want to go for nine minutes.”

“I’m doing more things now, squats, reaching for things, balancing,” he said. A year ago, he wheeled his own wheelchair for the first time in the Paralympic torch relay. His big goal was to stand at the altar to marry Deborah, whom he met in 2001. Last July 24, they exchanged vows, Greene standing with the support of parallel bars, in front of 120 family and friends in Nanaimo. He also stood for their first dance, “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate. His recovery is being studied by researchers who are monitoring with MRIs how his brain activity is being changed by his incremental progress years after his injury. HIs recovery challenges conventional scientific wisdom that most progress is made in the first few months after a brain injury.

Greene also speaks and corresponds with children about what he still believes is the importance of Canada’s mission in the troubled country. “I would like the opportunity to go back and teach the children,” said Greene, who has set up a foundation to help education. He totally absolves the youth who attacked him of any responsibility, blaming instead the Taliban for influencing him and recruiting him for their cause. “He was probably poor,” said Greene of the teen who was shot dead at the scene by Canadian soldiers. “He was one of the people I was supposed to help. The Taliban got to him first. If I had got to him first, I could have got him an education.” 

Greene, who has been honoured with the Sacrifice Medal from the Governor General and has accepted the role of reviewing officer in an upcoming cadet parade, is grateful that his life has been spared.

“I’m lucky to be alive, I recognize that,” he said. “I want to give back to acknowledge that.” Next up, he and Deborah are writing a book about his experience to help others. And this award is likely not the last chapter that will be written about Greene’s accomplishments. 

Written by: Susan Lazaruk, The Province

2010

	Youth Recipient Fahreen Mapara		Social Adversity Recipient Myrna Cranmer
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Mark Ash		Mental Health Recipient Theresa Duggan
	Medical Recipient Cindy Thomsen		Addiction Recipient Starr Peardon

2009

	Youth Recipient Jessica Brimacombe		Social Adversity Recipient Becki Wyer
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Vivian Garcia		Mental Health Recipient Tina Tomashiro
	Medical Recipient Lori Slater		Addiction Recipient Helen Burnham

2008

	Youth Recipient Michael Childs		Social Adversity Recipient Trisha Baptie
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient John Banovich		Mental Health Recipient Debbie Sesula
	Medical Recipient Zosia Ettenberg		Addiction Recipient Marlene Swift

2007

	Youth Recipient Kaytee Tuomola		Social Adversity Recipient Leslie Nelson
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Merle Smith		Mental Health Recipient Loyanne McCuaig
	Medical Recipient John Morrison		Addiction Recipient Hersh Abramson

2006

	First Recipient of a Special Courage To Come Back Award Sam Sullivan
	Youth Recipient Jeneece Edroff		Inspirational Achievement Recipient Gladys Evoy
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Jamie Waterlow		Mental Health Recipient Renea Mohammed
	Medical Recipient Kim Black		Addiction Recipient Randy Miller

2005

	Youth Recipient Emily White		Inspirational Achievement Recipient Halldor Bjarnason
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Johanna Johnson		Mental Health Recipient Donald Fraser
	General Medicine Recipient Melanie Carlbeck		Chemical Dependency Recipient Lora Johnston- Corbett

2004

	Youth Recipient Stephanie David		Social/Economic Adversity Recipient Florence Rickards
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Geoff McMurchy		Mental Health Recipient Mary Graham
	General Medicine Recipient Lori Wikdahl		Chemical Dependency Recipient Rodney Fregin

2003

	Youth Recipient Hardeep Bath		Social/Economic Adversity Recipient Blanche Anderson
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Robb Dunfield		Mental Health Recipient Jill Stainsby
	General Medicine Recipient Jacqueline Pope		Chemical Dependency Recipient Joe Roberts

2002

	Youth Recipient Kelsey Kilburn		Social/Economic Adversity Recipient Yvonne Sutton- Fregin
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Randy Herman		Mental Health Recipient Punkaj Bhushan
	General Medicine Recipient Cheryl Brown		Chemical Dependency Recipient Jade Bell

2001

	Youth Recipient Patrick Baynham		Economic Adversity Recipient Freda Ens
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Mary Williams		Mental Health Recipient Penny Keene
	General Medicine Recipient Kristy Coueffin		Chemical Dependency Recipient Fred Milne

2000

	Youth Recipient Natalie Lachowicz		Economic Adversity Recipient Carol Dauphinais
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Sherry Caves		Mental Health Recipient Paul McGillicuddy
	General Medicine Recipient Karilyn Walker		Chemical Dependency Recipient Dorothy Ward

1999

	Economic Adversity Recipient Pamela Andrews		Mental Health Recipient April Porter
	Physical Rehabilitation Recipient Tina Suter		Chemical Dependency Recipient Andre Spencer
	General Medicine Recipient Lorne Kimber