On 1 March 2020, when the 19-year-old was hit by a car in 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. In Flavill’s homeland that day, newspaper front pages did not lead to the disease spreading, but to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that he and his fiancée were expecting a child.
Weeks later, the world came to a standstill, but everything that had happened since March 1 had passed Flavill – even though he had caught COVID-19 while unconscious.
Now the teenager began to emerge from a ten-month coma, reviving his family, but confronted them with a new question: How do you declare a year like no other?
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“If he comes out of this, life will not be the way he knows it to be,” Flavill’s aunt, Kate Yarbo, told CNN. “How do you describe it? I think it’s going to be a shock. We’re 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 locked up, meaning only his mother, Sharon Flavill, allowed him to visit him at a distance in the hospital, dressed 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? [have nurses] in PPE if you do not understand what’s going on? asked 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 down and watching a sci-fi movie, is not it? You could not write the pandemic as a movie. That’s how it’s going to be exactly for Joseph, and never. the fear does not have to go through. and emotion we all had, because hopefully a lot of the fear will go away if you look at it. “
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“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 think about our Cornwall holidays. I said, ‘Will you promise me that your first word will be thorough?'” Yarbo said, referring to the Cornish pasta. And then he blinked. Something is just spinning in my stomach. I say ‘Did you intentionally shine? and he blinked twice. Then we know he is communicating. ‘
Since then, his progress has been rapid.
“The last week has been incredible,” Yarbo said. “He can’t speak yet, but clearly he’s starting to get control of his limbs, and his sense of humor is there, he’s starting to laugh at jokes. We’re all amazed, 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, by looking 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 who has learned secondhand about the pandemic. But he will also learn how long his family and friends have gone to communicate with him again.
They raised nearly $ 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 said they have another goal – to raise awareness of the impact of traumatic brain injuries.
“The thing about Joe is that he has always been such an energy force. He is the most determined person,” Yarbo said. “Who knows how far he’s going to go now.”
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The video above comes from a previous story.