'Truly a miracle': Akron dancer overcomes traumatic brain injury, shares story of hope
With every step, turn and bravura lift that professional ballet dancer Brian Murphy executed at a rehearsal with a dance partner in Akron earlier this month, he was thankful to be alive.
After suffering a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a bike accident in late June in Toledo and having lifesaving neurosurgery, he's thrilled to be back dancing full-strength.
This weekend, he'll be making his first public performance since his accident, as a guest dancer for Cleveland's Dancing Wheels at the Big Umbrella Festival for neurodiverse audiences at the Lincoln Center in New York. Murphy has danced with Dancing Wheels, which integrates dancers of all abilities, for a year.
"I'm so fortunate to be even here and it's truly a miracle that I am dancing," Murphy said. "I don't think anybody knew I was going to come back this fast."
'It was like a dream'
On June 26, he and his wife, Suzy had been paddle boarding with friends at Maumee Bay State Park when Murphy, still wearing his bathing suit, got on his bike to go a short distance to the lodge to get water.
Halfway across a bridge, he hit a short lamp post and crashed, suffering an internal bleed on the right side of his head as well as a broken right clavicle and broken left index finger.
The bleed, called an epidural hematoma, happened between Murphy's skull and the dura matter covering his brain. A small skull fracture tore the membrane covering his brain, causing a rupture in Murphy's middle meningeal artery.
More:DJ StoryBook reaches outside the box of isolation
Murphy remembers sitting in the grass with his shoulder hurting after the accident. Everything seemed foggy around him.
"It was like a dream," he said.
Murphy, 49, of Akron said he's a strong biker who always wears a helmet. But this time he didn't, as he had just gotten out of the water and was going a short distance.
An onlooker called 911 and Suzy, after wondering where her husband was, came looking for him and found his bike on the ground and Murphy in an ambulance.
As it turned out, he didn't have much time.
'I'm begging you just to save him'
Murphy was taken to Mercy Health-St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo, where a CT scan revealed the internal bleeding. Murphy, who was lucid when he arrived at the hospital, became comatose about three hours later, which is common with these types of brain injuries. He was unable to breathe on his own and had to be intubated.
A second CT scan revealed the hematoma had grown much larger and was pushing on his brain. Immediate neurosurgery was the only way to save Murphy's life.
Dr. Aaron Moore, medical director of the surgical trauma ICU at Mercy Health-St. Vincent, warned Suzy Murphy that her husband might not survive neurosurgery. And if he did, he might not be able to speak again and could be paralyzed on his left side.
"I'll spend the rest of my life taking care of Brian, happily," a distraught Suzy told Moore. "I'm begging you just to save him."
Suzy's brother Joey Rauh, who had rushed to the Toledo hospital with their sister Mary Ellen Bryan, prayed while Suzy talked to her husband through her mind, willing him to live through neurosurgery with Dr. X. Sean Xin.
An hour or two into Murphy's surgery, Suzy received a call on her cellphone from an "angel" nurse.
"We're still in surgery. I just need to tell you that Dr. Xin got it," the OR nurse said.
And then the nurse shared the news Suzy had been waiting to hear about her husband: "He's alive."
Suzy and her brother hugged each other and fell to the ground, sobbing.
"The way she spoke was so reassuring and so wonderful, that it was the biggest gift I've ever really had in my life," Suzy said of the compassionate call.
After surgery, Xin spoke calmly to Suzy, saying: "We got it. He's gonna be OK. He's gonna make it," and she thanked him for saving her husband's life.
Xin said the surgery's timing within four hours after Murphy arrived at the hospital, immediately after his second CT scan, was critical.
"There was no permanent [brain] damage because we got the pressure off very quickly," the neurosurgeon said.
Moore said getting control of an epidural hematoma is difficult; people can bleed out and die.
"His survival [chance] was low, let alone along getting back to dancing," Moore said.
When Murphy saw Xin after surgery, he held his hand and thanked the doctor.
"You saved my life," Murphy told him.
'It was meant to be'
By a fortuitous coincidence, Murphy's former dance partner, Dr. Stephanie Krise, was part of his medical care team in Toledo. They had danced together with Verb Ballets and Ohio Ballet in Northeast Ohio and have been close friends for 20 years.
Krise, who stopped dancing about eight years ago, was a surgical resident at Mercy Health when Murphy was hospitalized in June. When she came to work June 28, she didn't know until she walked into the room that a patient who was intubated and not doing well was her good friend Murphy.
Krise, who helped care for Murphy for the rest of his hospital stay, was at his bedside when he woke up the day after surgery.
"Oh my God, you're here, and it was meant to be," Murphy said when he woke up and saw his former partner.
He calls Krise being there during his medical ordeal "the stars aligning."
"It was definitely kind of mind-blowing," she said. "You never want to see anybody in that situation, especially a friend. But it's also a reminder that that's why I chose to go into medicine."
Krise also provided emotional support to Murphy's wife Suzy, holding her hand through news of her husband's initial grim prognosis. She sat with Murphy an extra hour or two after her night shifts and soon was bringing her friend doughnuts and coffee each morning.
Ballet barre in the hospital hallway
Murphy suffered a seizure after the surgery. He was expected to stay in the hospital about two weeks after neurosurgery and to receive physical, occupational and brain therapy. He recovered so quickly, though, he was released from the hospital four days after surgery.
Moore said he expected Murphy to need a semi-permanent breathing tube as well as a feeding tube as he recovered in the ICU, followed with traumatic brain rehab for six weeks to six months.
Amazingly, none of those things were needed.
"He was able to get his breathing tube out the next day [after surgery], which was a shock for us," Moore said. "And he continued to greatly improve at a rate that we normally don't see."
Knowing Murphy and his positive outlook as a dancer and a person so well, Krise wasn't surprised he defied the discharge timetable. Murphy, who was unable to sit still, walked by the second day and soon started doing leg exercises in bed.
"He was asking us if he could get up and walk around and the next thing I know, he's doing ballet barre in the hallway at the hospital," Krise said.
'One of the lucky ones'
Suzy Murphy said returning home with her recovering husband was nerve-wracking, even though doctors assured her that the artery in his head would not rupture again.
"I was living in this suspended reality of anxiety and dread," she said.
The road back to dancing felt long at the time for Murphy, who as a professional dancer had been used to dancing nearly every day for decades.
For the first month at home, Murphy slept.
He felt no pain, but he did feel his muscles atrophying from being inactive for weeks.
Dr. Ghassan Khayyat, the Cleveland Clinic Akron General neurosurgeon who was part of Murphy's followup care, said a CT scan showed July 14 he wasn't ready to return to dance. But after another CT scan July 28, just one month after Murphy's accident, he cleared him to dance.
Murphy cried and hugged both the doctor and nurse at the news. That day, Khayyat told Murphy that his recovery was a miracle.
"He was one of the lucky ones," Khayyat said. "When patients recover that well and know what the alternatives are ... what they heard about other people who did not make it or made it with some impairment, it is a miracle to them, and to me too."
Murphy slowly began putting himself through a basic version of his own ballet class at his Akron home studio, but he was unable to bend forward due to his clavicle injury.
"When you're used to dancing every day, when you lose days or weeks of work or dancing, you lose your muscular ability to do stuff. I was out at least six weeks from doing any physical activity, activity that I was used to," he said.
Murphy knew he had to work slowly or he risked hurting himself and would have to be out for the next three months.
"It was hard," Murphy said. "It was really emotional and I cried a lot."
Murphy couldn't practice spins, but he chose to focus on what he could do. He couldn't drive but he could walk, so he walked to the store daily to get food.
He had to cancel about a dozen commitments, including a performance with Dancing Wheels in Miami, because he couldn't perform, teach or get on a plane until mid-August.
"Part of this whole experience is the unknown, because I'm a dancer and I'm physical," Murphy said.
His broken clavicle held him back from dance longer than his brain injury did, stopping him from lifting or bending forward nearly eight weeks. James Leach, a physician assistant in orthopedics at Cleveland Clinic Akron General, said Murphy needed to wait about six weeks for his shoulder to heal enough to start rehab.
Rather than going to physical therapy, Murphy chose to do a home exercise program on his own with the help of exercise bands. He had to be careful and let pain be the guide with his early movements as he worked to increase his range of motion.
"He's super, super athletic and super fit," said Leach, who also was impressed with how "spiritually driven and positive" Murphy was. "When you're healthy and athletic and motivated, you can really be in tune with your body and start strengthening it up."
During his recovery, Murphy lost about 15 pounds — but he has gained nearly all of it back. With his hair growing back, the large scar on his head is barely discernible. Murphy, who had his left index finger repaired, also lost a small part of his finger tip.
Murphy returned to dancing with others — Dancing Wheels — in mid-August, 7½ weeks after his accident. "He is an integral part of the arts scene and our company in general. We love him," Dancing Wheels founder Mary Verdi-Fletcher said at rehearsal in Cleveland Aug. 30.
Uncommon recovery
Murphy, who grew up in Cuyahoga Falls and trained at Nan Klinger Excellence in Dance, questions why he survived a traumatic brain injury while others have not. "Why did my brain recover so quickly?" he asked.
Murphy doesn't have all the answers but believes that being a dancer — being in good shape from working hard — is part of what helped him survive his brain injury.
Over nearly three decades, Murphy has danced professionally with the Nashville Ballet, Ohio Ballet, GroundWorks, Cleveland San Jose Ballet, and Verb Ballets, where he danced from 2006 to 2014. Since then, he has worked as a guest artist for both local and out-of-state companies, choreographed, taught dance and previously served as artistic director for Wayne Center of the Arts. He and his wife also run their Pilates by Murphys home studio.
Moore said Murphy's strength, motivation and young age were big factors in his positive outcome. He contrasted Murphy's recovery with NFL quarterbacks who have concussions and are sometimes out four to six weeks.
"He (Murphy) had his skull off and blood removed from his head and he's back to performing ballet at that level within a few weeks or months," Moore said.
Xin agreed that Murphy's quick recovery was uncommon.
"It's not very common though, someone comes in with a brain injury, goes in a coma, has surgery and then a quick recovery like his," he said. "In about 10 or 11 years of experience, this type of outcome is more on the uncommon side."
'I'm so excited to get to dance with him'
Heading into practicing ballet lifts with dance partner Christina Lindhout in Akron Sept. 2, Murphy had been focusing on cross training that included pilates, pushups and weights.
This was their first rehearsal for their upcoming grand pas de deux as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier for Ashland Regional Ballet's "The Nutcracker." The pair, who've been friends for a decade, were dance partners for Verb Ballets' 2015 season.
"Now, with his amazing comeback, I'm so excited to get to dance with him," Lindhout said at their rehearsal, held at the former Temple Israel in Akron.
They hugged before they started practicing difficult lifts for their technically dazzling duet, with Murphy lifting Lindhout high as she was in arabesque position and also lifting her onto his shoulder.
"Did I hurt your clavicle?" Lindhout asked after a lift.
"No. Everything feels good," Murphy said.
Murphy was happy how his first rehearsal doing lifts went.
"All I know is that today is a big day. We just got all the lifts," he said. "Today was a test day. I needed to feel comfortable and confident."
"Good job. I knew you could do it. I'm so proud of you," Lindhout said at the end of rehearsal.
'I have been given a second chance'
Murphy's medical ordeal has changed the way he looks at life. Through it all, many friends have connected with him by calling, texting and visiting with words of encouragement. He's also made a point of reaching out to friends he hasn't spoken with in a while and telling them how important they are to him.
"It's almost like this feeling that before this happened, we didn't take the time to tell each other we love them. We just took it for granted," he said.
Murphy wants to give others hope by sharing the story of his recovery.
"I think it's truly something that gives people hope that when they go through a hard thing like this, there's always that potential they can come back," he said.
"Here it's been nine weeks and I'm doing what I love to do, but even with people that don't get to recover this fast, there's always hope that you can start to do the thing you want to do," Murphy said in late August.
Looking forward, he plans to create a dance about his recovery journey. He's also using a website he created, artprevents.com, as a platform for people to share their own TBI stories and where he talks about his recovery experience in a blog.
"Dance to me has been my spiritual journey of life," Murphy said. "So when I thought that was taken away, so to speak, some of that spiritual feeling, I felt almost drained.
"...All of it could be done, but it wasn't," he said of his dance career. "I actually have a responsibility now to share that with people, to share who I am and what dance means.
"Beyond luck or beyond fortune, I think I have been given a second chance. I've been blessed with a wonderful life and it's an opportunity to continue that wonderful life. It's not just about me. It's about how we make an impact on each other."
Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron dancer shares hope after recovery from traumatic brain injury
