Awakening Hope

It was a simple act of love, the moment Keith Mullins kissed the snapshot. But it was the breakthrough his wife, Marilyn, had spent weeks waiting, hoping and praying for.

Keith Mullins was the victim of a car wreck Jan. 15 that left him comatose, partially paralyzed and on life support.

After two weeks on a ventilator, however, the 54-year-old Van Nuys businessman showed signs of breathing on his own. Doctors removed the ventilator and performed a tracheotomy to allow him to draw air through a hole in his throat.

Still, Mullins continued his deep sleep.

Then, on Feb. 27, during one of her many visits, Marilyn held up a photograph of the two of them taken at Lake Balboa. Keith slowly reached out and brought the snapshot to his lips.

“I said, ‘Oh my God!’ ” Marilyn Mullins recalled. “It was the glimmer of hope we had been waiting for.”

After nearly three months of intense physical, speech and occupational therapy at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, the president-elect of the Mid Valley Chamber of Commerce will be feted today at a farewell party before going home Saturday.

*

Although Mullins will continue his therapy as an outpatient, family members said his return home is a major step in his recovery.

“All the medical staff here said that if he woke up, it would be a miracle,” Marilyn Mullins said. “It has been prayer, prayer, prayer that made this miracle happen.”

Christina Capo, one of the Mullinses’ three grown children, said she is grateful for her father’s recovery.

“There are so many people whose loved ones are in an accident, and that’s it,” she said. “We feel so blessed that we have been given a second chance with our dad.”

Keith Mullins’ life took a tragic turn while on a routine business call on a sunny Friday afternoon in January. The owner of Earthquake Valve Co., a firm that installs automatic natural gas shut-off valves, was driving along Roscoe Boulevard in Van Nuys when another driver crossed the center lane and struck Mullins’ car head-on.

The force of the crash severely shook Mullins’ brain and severed nerves, leaving him unable to walk, talk, speak, sit up, breathe or swallow, according to Jamie Terrence, the nurse manager in the hospital’s Skilled Nursing and Acute Rehabilitation Unit. He also suffered a broken leg, collarbone and ribs.

Mullins was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center and later transferred to Valley Presbyterian.

“The doctors didn’t think he was going to make it,” his wife said.

As word of the accident spread, Mullins’ large network of family, friends, business associates and community activists kept a constant vigil at the hospital.

Capo said about 300 visitors stopped by during her father’s first weekend in the hospital. The well-wishers included members of St. Elisabeth Catholic Church, the Mid Valley chamber and the American Motorcycle Assn.

Sister Dominic Finnamore, the Roman Catholic nun who raised Mullins as an orphan at the former Nazareth House in Van Nuys, also visited.

After Mullins’ condition improved enough for doctors to take him off the ventilator, the once-vigorous and outgoing man remained in a persistent vegetative state.

“That was so frightening: This was someone who could breath on his own but couldn’t wake up,” Marilyn Mullins said. “We went day by day. We didn’t know what would happen.”

As the days turned into weeks, the family began to consider long-term care for the man who had been the foundation of the family.

“He was the center of our lives,” Capo said. “He would light up the room. The party couldn’t go on without him.”

Mullins was moved to the hospital’s skilled nursing unit, a floor for patients about to enter a convalescent home. Not long after her husband was settled into his room, Marilyn Mullins witnessed what she calls a miracle.

“After he looked at the picture of us at the lake,” she said, “I gave him a hairbrush and he began to brush his hair. Then I gave him a toothbrush and he made the motion of brushing his teeth. Then I gave him a pen and he clicked it as if he was going to write something.”

Hospital therapists immediately devised a plan to get Mullins moving again. X-ray technicians viewed his upper digestive tract to determine if he could swallow solid food.

Relatives knew Mullins was on the road to recovery when his first solid food after more than six weeks was a slice of cheesecake.

“Keith has the best personality,” said Tim Tavanbakhsh, physical therapy coordinator at Valley Presbyterian. “He is never agitated and never resists. His attitude helps him to get through his therapy. He is always a step ahead of us.”

On Thursday, Mullins welcomed relatives and a reporter to his therapy sessions. He chatted amiably, albeit slowly, with his therapists as he identified items on flash cards and wrote down their names on a pad. He later completed exercises to strengthen his paralyzed left side and upper body.

Mullins smiled as his daughter Theresa snapped pictures and his son, Steven, captured the moment on videotape. He joked about his uneven smile, saying, “My teeth bit the dust when my car crashed.”

“They were six new crowns,” Marilyn Mullins said, shaking her head.

As he was wheeled out of the room, Mullins quipped to his family, “Thank you for coming. Thank you for taking our photographs. We loved it.”