Cormac back home after his ‘miraculous' recovery from New Zealand fall injuries

“Miraculous” is the word that medics have used to describe the recovery of 20-year-old Mullingar man Cormac O’Brennan who “died” seven times after falling 80 feet down a cliff in New Zealand at the start of this year, writes Eilís Ryan.

Given a less than 10 per cent likelihood of survival, no one could have imagined that just three months later, he would be able to walk on board an aircraft to undertake the long journey home – but on Friday April 19, that’s what he did, accompanied by his father, businessman Paul O’Brennan, a former president of Mullingar Chamber of Commerce.

“I would absolutely guarantee - and so would the doctors - that this is a miracle. It should not be possible and yet he is here,” says Paul.

Paul had been warned as he began his journey to New Zealand after Cormac’s fall that the prognosis was poor.

“It was shocking,” he says, becoming emotional as he recalls learning of the accident while on a visit to relatives in New York with his daughter Aisling.

It was clearly serious. “Look: you need to get here,“ the doctor in the ICU told Paul. “Cormac is really critically ill and his chances of survival are in the very low percentages.”

On the fateful day of his near-death accident, Cormac and his friends had gone surfing at the popular “Taylor’s Mistake” beach famed for its rockpools – and after surfing, Cormac began what initially looked like a not-too-difficult climb to reach them.

Disaster struck however: “The rocks fell, and I went with them,” he explains, while adding that he can remember nothing about the accident itself – nor indeed much of the weeks afterwards.

He broke his pelvis, broke his nose – but more significantly suffered a severe head injury, reveals Paul, who theorises that the rocks may have become loose during the Christchurch earthquake.

Fortunately for Cormac, when he fell, there were two nurses nearby and an off duty paramedic. At this stage Cormac was talking but did not realise he was in fact perilously close to death and that an air ambulance had been scrambled to the scene

At Christchurch hospital, as it happened, it was actually a Fermanagh-born orthopaedic surgeon who oversaw the process of getting Cormac from the helicopter into the hospital. She told Paul afterwards that she really had not expected Cormac to pull through.

In fact, no-one did – but that did not stop them doing all in their power to maximise his chances, and Cormac and his family are deeply grateful to all those who helped him towards recovery.

The accident happened on January 3 and it took 18 hours from the time of the accident for word to reach Paul:

“They had to go back to emigration and find out who was his next of kin, so it was about six or 7 o’clock in the evening when I got the call from a social worker asking who I was and did I have a son called Cormac and was he in Christchurch,” he says.

When Paul confirmed his identity, the social worker broke the news that Cormac had had “a critical accident” and instructed him to contact the hospital.

As Paul spoke with the doctors, Aisling was already booking him a flight. Then they had to begin breaking the news to Cormac’s mother, Helen, back in Mullingar and his brother, Stephen, in Dublin.

The earliest flight Paul could get was the next morning but first, overnight, he had to consent to the removal of a portion of Cormac’s skull, because his brain had swollen.

The journey from New York to New Zealand took 30 hours and he landed on January 6. What he was holding onto the doctors’ assurance that Cormac would still be alive since they had him on a life support machine.

However that was not any form of hope: “We were told the chances of survival were next to nil so obviously I thought I was going over to turn off a machine,” he recalls.

The airport had been told of the urgency of Paul’s situation so he was rushed through customs and immigration and within five minutes of disembarking was on his way to the hospital.

There, he was heartbroken: his son was in a coma; his head was misshaped and swollen; there was a plaster which said “no bone” on one side of his head, and 13 different tubes connected him to drips or machines.

“The doctors went through the prognosis and said ’this is not looking good; you know the situation’. However I think it was at that time that I said: ‘don’t write him off just yet’,” says Paul.

Remarkably, within two days – as Helen and Stephen arrived from Ireland - doctors began tentatively to suggest that there was, after all, a possibility that Cormac might survive. However the neurosurgeon did warn Paul not to expect too much. In fact, she said, Cormac would never be the same person. Paul responded that he was not giving up hope and that he “would take what he could get“.

Paul rented an apartment near the hospital, and he and the rest of the family spent all their time with Cormac holding his hand and talking to him. When Helen and Stephen had to go home (Helen returning later to New Zealand again) Paul stayed on and on January 21, Cormac opened up his eyes – just two days after his mother and brother had returned home to Ireland.

“I said ‘do you know who I am?’ and he nodded. From there on I knew we were going in the right direction,” says Paul, who remained in New Zealand for the duration of Cormac’s treatment.

Even though Paul was adamant that Cormac was responding, the doctors were cautious about accepting this until a nurse on the ward also realised he was reacting.

Gradually, every day provided some little thing to give hope. However, it still took o2 1/2 months before his skull was restored to him, and then he went to a rehab centre.

The neurosurgeon who had warned Paul that the future did not look very good actually welled up with tears when she met Cormac and found him back to himself. “You are why we come to work every day. Do you realise this is literally a miracle?“ are the words she said to him.

Fortunately for Cormac his medical costs were met by the New Zealand state: his own travel insurance company have been trying to find ways to avoid meeting his other costs. However, it turned out his VHI cover was still in place, and VHI were very helpful and covered his repatriation costs – a not inconsiderable expense given that he needed to travel home business class and he needed to have Paul fly with him - although thankfully he did not need to have any medical professionals along.

For Paul himself, the costs of staying in New Zealand, paying for accommodation, food travel and general living expenses ran to “tens of thousands” of euros. Over €8000 was donated via a GoFundMe appeal launched by Aisling and there was also a number of benefit events held locally in Mullingar. Paul expresses his gratitude to all who organised these, including Kasia Gaborec, Brendan McEvoy, Stephen McConnell and Multy Gun Club; the bands who played at the benefit night, and all those who made donations - not least the Sisk company, for whom his daughter Aisling works, and who made a very generous contribution.

Paul cannot speak highly enough of the kindness of the staff of Emirates Air: once they knew the purpose of his journey they allowed him board last so he could continue using his phone as long as possible; plus they bumped him up a class so he would have on-board internet access to keep abreast of developments with Cormac. One of the air crew even tracked Paul down via LinkedIn some weeks later to find out what the outcome had been – and while on a layover in Sydney flew to Christchurch to meet Cormac, bearing a card filled with prayers and best wishes from people all over the world.

Paul also praises the insurance system in New Zealand that covers medical expenses for residents and visitors alike.

“I have just had my eyes opened like never before. They have the ‘society’ over there that we like to think we have here. Not everything is right over there are some things are more expensive one but they do have a caring society,” says Paul.

As for Cormac despite his experience, he cannot wait to return to New Zealand: “It’s a great country. I love it there,” he says.