(CNN) – Joseph Flavill slipped out of one world and woke up in another.
On 1 March 2020, when the 19-year-old was hit by a car in Staffordshire, central England, the UK recorded only 23 cases of a new virus. The vast majority of Covid-19 infections were still confined to China, and the United States confirmed only one death.
Sports events, bars and restaurants abound. And in Flavill’s homeland that day, newspaper front pages did not spread the disease, but the announcement by Prime Minister Boris Johnson that he and his fiancée were expecting a child.
Weeks later, the world came to a standstill. But everything that has happened since March 1 has passed Flavill, even though he caught Covid-19 while unconscious.
Now the teenager has begun to emerge from a ten-month coma – raising his family, but confronting them with a new question: How do you explain a year like no other?
“If he comes out of this, life will not be the way he knows it to be,” Kate Yarbo, Aunt of Flavill, told CNN. How do you describe it?
“I think it’s going to be a shock. We’re all still processing it – I’m not sure you can ever describe how this pandemic feels. ”
The family’s ordeal began days before the rapid onslaught of cancellations, deaths and locks.
Flavill, a cricket and hockey lover, was prepared to visit Buckingham Palace in May to collect the award for the Duke of Edinburgh’s youth achievement. But a collision with a car left him with a traumatic brain injury to the back of his head, and he was rushed to a hospital in Leicester, central England.
Three weeks later, Britain was in the lock, meaning only his mother, Sharon Flavill, could visit him in the hospital at a distance, and he dressed from head to toe in protective gear. “Life was suspended, and then the closure took place,” Yarbo said.
His mother is still waiting until it is safe to touch her son, who is now recovering in a care home.
The pandemic drastically affected Flavill’s hospital care, but it is unclear whether he understood his family’s explanations why.
“How scary is it to have (nurses) in PBT if you do not understand what’s going on?” Vra Yarbo.
“He will only ever understand it through our ability to describe it and through news reports. The horror, ”she said. “So many people have said it’s like sitting and watching a sci-fi movie, is not it? You could not write the pandemic as a movie. ‘
“This is exactly how it’s going to be for Joseph … to never have to go through the fear and emotion we all had, because if you look at it, hopefully a lot of fear will go away.”
“You want to hold his hand”
The rest of the family talked to Flavill virtually, trying to stimulate their brains through video and audio, and enlisting the help of family members and friends through Joseph’s Journey fundraising page.
“He was in so much pain, he had seizures, it was a terrible traumatic journey for him,” Yarbo said. And then, in the last few days and weeks, there came a breakthrough.
First, Flavill smiled as he recorded audio recorded in an airplane cabin. Next comes a Zoom call with his aunt. ‘I joked with him that one day he would be able to talk and remind us of our Cornwall holiday. I said, ‘will you promise me that your first word will be thorough?’ Said Yarbo, referring to the famous Cornish pastry. “And then he cut.”
“Something just spun in my stomach. I said ‘did you intentionally cut?’ and he blinked twice. Then we knew he was communicating. ”
Since then, his progress has been rapid.
“The past week has been incredible,” Yarbo said. “He can’t speak yet, but he’s starting to gain clear control over his limbs, and his sense of humor is there, he’s starting to laugh at jokes.”
“We’re all dumbfounded, it’s amazing what the brain can do.”
Flavill caught Covid-19 in a coma, which prevented him from receiving a vaccine, but he will soon be eligible for a jab, his aunt says.
His family also discussed how to talk to him about the news of the past ten months, once he can fully understand it.
“We will be guided by the personal feelings: Did you know we were not there?” she said. ‘It’s a big thing for his mother to manage emotionally and look at him through a screen. You want to hold his hand, you want to be there all the time. ”
Flavill will be one of the few adults in the Western world to learn secondhand about the pandemic. But he will also learn how long his family and friends have gone to communicate with him again.
They raised almost £ 33,000 ($ 45,000) to help with the costs of his care once he left the hospital, many of which are still unknown. “No one knows what the long-term impact will be, but we do know that the journey can be long and expensive,” they wrote on their website.
His mother, Sharon, received audio and video clips from well-wishers to play for her son, some of which may have contributed to his progress, his aunt says.
And the family says they have another goal – to raise awareness of the impact of traumatic brain injuries.
‘The thing about Joe is that he’s always been such an energy force. He is the most determined person, “said Yarbo. “Who knows how far he’s going to go now.”
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