Ontario tow operator survives traumatic head injury to remind others about safety
Canadian tow operator Brandon Brown never made it home at the end of his shift on March 17. Instead, the 20-year veteran of the road landed in the Intensive Care Unit at a Toronto trauma center with severe head injuries sustained during a horrific incident in the line of duty.
The tragic mishap occurred on Toronto’s notoriously-congested Highway 400. Brown, a heavy operator with Auto Route Heavy Towing in Newmarket, Ont., was dispatched to the scene of a disabled 2007 Hino cube box truck. He said he felt the pressure to remove the casualty in a timely manner.
“We were in the middle of the 400 Series highway, which is the biggest interstate we have up here,” Brown explained in a phone interview on Sept. 17, exactly six months removed from the incident.
Prepping for the tow, Brown, 38, said he followed his “normal routine” to ensure his own safety before crawling under the truck to remove the driveshaft. He then noticed the driver of the truck standing in the elements watching him work. Knowing he was cold from the below-freezing temperatures outside, he gestured to the driver to jump in the cab of his wrecker to warm up.
Instead, the driver misunderstood Brown’s direction and, unbeknownst to Brown, jumped in the cab of the Hino. Brown thought he had provided clear instructions by pointing to his own wrecker and didn’t realize the driver had jumped back into the Hino. What happened next would change Brown’s life forever.
Life-saving medical procedures
No longer seeing the driver from the ground, Brown returned to the job at hand and was halfway through removing the second bolt on the driveshaft when he heard the engine of the truck he was working under start up. The driveshaft unexpectedly began to spin, and the force sheared the second bolt and broke an ear off the yoke before fully disconnecting and landing on Brown’s head.
The crushing blow knocked Brown out cold. He regained consciousness in a pool of blood some 10 minutes later with a fractured skull from multiple impacts with the steel shaft. A post-incident investigation later revealed the uncoupled driveshaft was spinning the whole time he was unconscious, and the driver in the cab was unaware of the injured operator below him.
“I woke up covered in blood,” Brown recalled. “I really had no idea what happened. I got up on my hands and knees and crawled backwards out from under the truck. I really wasn't sure to what level I had been injured. I just knew I had been injured, and I was pretty sure it was the driveshaft that did it.”
With a police escort, Brown was rushed from the scene to nearby Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto. He had sustained a 40cm fracture to his skull, and attending physicians said he had lost 70 percent of his blood. His chances for survival were slim. Emergency surgery left him with 50 stitches in his head, and he was intubated in the Intensive Care Unit.
Although not paralyzed, Brown said he had also suffered two fractured vertebrae and was at risk for losing an eye from the swelling. While he regrets the incident even occurred, he credits his proximity to the Toronto trauma center for saving his life. He is also grateful to all the medical professionals for their quick actions.
“The fact this incident occurred is crazy enough, but the fact that it happened so close to a hospital where I could be saved is really a miracle. It definitely plays a role in why I’m still here,” Brown said, reflectively.
Discharged within a week
Brown said he was walking within 72 hours of the incident, and his eye opened again on the fourth day. Amazingly, he was discharged from the hospital just six days after the incident. He said he definitely credits the medical staff for his recovery but said his wife, Melaura, played a significant role as well. In fact, he was discharged from the hospital under her care.
“Fortunately, my wife is a stroke rehab nurse, and she works with traumatic brain injuries every day,” Brown said. “She really pushed to get me going on physical therapy and occupational therapy right away.”
While still on the mend, Brown said his brain function has been fully restored with just “one small spot” on the frontal lobe with permanent damage. “My doctor said the recovery that we're seeing is nothing that we have even remotely expected,” Brown said. “He said my level of injury was catastrophic, and he figured they were going to find a whole lot more damage than they did.”
Besides follow-up doctor visits, Brown said an important part of his recovery to date has also included work with psychiatrists to determine if he has suffered any post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident. “They want to make sure I won’t get triggered by seeing trucks again,” Brown explained. “They’ve worked through my feelings and emotions, and they know I want to get back into the tow industry, so they don’t have a concern for PTSD.”
Brown said part of his “self therapy” has also been visiting with the guilt-ridden driver of the Hino truck on several occasions and forgiving him for their misunderstanding. On a professional level, Brown said he has been medically cleared for light-duty tasks and expects to make a full return to work within a year. In the meantime, he said he plans to share his inspirational story with others.
“It’s a miracle I’m still here,” Brown said. “I feel I survived to help spread my story and make sure other operators take their time and work safely on the side of the road. A lot of good can come from my incident.”
Spreading the word on safety
Part of his outreach has been sharing his medical journey through social media posts, interviews with trade publications and attendance at trade shows, including the Ontario Tow Show in September. There, he met with sales reps from SafeAll and Zip’s AW Direct and learned of the Driveline Pro, a driveshaft removal tool that he now feels could have prevented his injury in the first place.
“In our industry, everybody’s in a big hurry to get off the side of the road. I feel we've become complacent. We’ve neglected to spend more time on our own safety,” he said. “I look at the Driveline Pro and definitely feel that strap-and-bar setup would have saved my head. That simple little tool just takes a couple of minutes to install and would have completely stopped that driveshaft from coming down on me. At the very least, it would have given me enough warning to get out of the way.”
Brown hails from a long line of tow operators in his family and vividly remembers riding in the cab of a wrecker with his father and uncles. He said he was raised to be a benevolent tow operator and to follow the Golden Rule when helping others. As a father to eight himself, he understands how important it is to watch out for himself too. That’s why he feels the Driveline Pro is a good investment for any tow company.
“The Driveline Pro is a very simple tool to use, and it really doesn’t cost you much. It's a couple of hundred dollars. Let me ask you this: What is your life worth to your family? This tool absolutely would have caught that driveshaft in my scenario. So, if you are only looking at it from the perspective of money, you're looking at it the wrong way. What does it provide? Peace of mind. It makes sure that you've got another safety tool on your truck that's going to let you go home every night.”
