Cory Duncan has come a long way in the past 18 months—from a 12-year-old boy who was given little chance of ever walking again, to a happy teenager who is back in the classroom.
The 14-year-old Cairns student suffered life-threatening spinal and head injuries in a head-on collision on the Tableland in September 2008.
After treatment at the Cairns Base Hospital Intensive Care Unit, he was flown to Mater Children's Hospital in Brisbane for a series of operations and received specialist care for three weeks in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit followed by rehabilitation for three months.
Although he was expected to spend six months in Brisbane for rehabilitation, his determination saw him halve that time and he was back home in Cairns just before his birthday on 22 January.
Cory still has physiotherapy once a week and requires a 12-month check up for his spinal cord at Mater Children's Hospital. But other than an eye patch to help him deal with double vision, he looks like any other 14-year-old teenager.
"Our family is so grateful that the Cairns Base and Mater Children's Hospital saved Cory’s life," Cory's mother Donna Bormann said.
"Each time we're at Mater in Brisbane for Cory’s treatment we visit the brilliant doctors and nurses who got Cory to where he is today. They all remember him because he was such a miracle."