Rejoicing at Coma Victim’s Progress

Keith Mullins has had his share of divine help, beginning with the nuns who raised him as an orphan.

He grew up to be the owner of Earthquake Valve Co., which installs automatic shut-off valves for gas lines. He married his sweetheart, and they raised three children in the San Fernando Valley.

In January, the 54-year-old Mullins was on a business call when another driver plowed head-on into his car, leaving him in a coma that stretched on for weeks.

Hundreds of visitors went to his bedside at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, including Sister Dominic, one of the Roman Catholic nuns who looked after him at the Nazareth Home for Boys.

Plans were made to move Mullins from the hospital into a long-term care facility. His family and friends prayed for a miracle, and it finally came Feb. 27.

That day, Marilyn, his wife of 32 years, held up a photograph of the couple at Lake Balboa. Mullins slowly reached out, brought the snapshot to his eyes and kissed it.

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

Yet it was only the first step in a journey that has spanned nearly three months of therapy to help him learn how to speak and move again.

Mullins is partially paralyzed on his left side, but he can now walk with a cane and speak very slowly. On Saturday, he will finally leave the hospital and return home.

“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 Mullins’ 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.”

Physicians were not so optimistic after the accident.

The force of the crash severed Mullins’ nerves, leaving him unable to walk, speak, sit up, breathe or swallow, said Jamie Terrence, the nursing manager in the hospital’s Skilled Nursing and Acute Rehabilitation Unit.

Mullins also suffered a broken leg, collarbone and ribs.

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

As word of the accident spread, friends, business associates and community activists kept a constant vigil at the hospital. About 300 showed up over the first weekend of his recovery, including members of St. Elisabeth Catholic Church, the Mid-Valley Chamber of Commerce and the American Motorcycle Assn.

Mullins is president-elect of the Mid-Valley chamber and “the center of our lives,” daughter Christina said. “The party couldn’t go on without him.”

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

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

Mullins was moved to the hospital’s skilled nursing unit, a floor for patients about to enter a convalescent home. Not long after he was settled into his room, his wife took in the picture and he awoke.

“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 quickly devised a plan to get Mullins moving.

Relatives knew that he was on the road to recovery when he ate his first solid food--a slice of cheesecake.

Besides food and prayers, Mullins had to rely on his own character.

“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 session. He chatted slowly with therapists as he identified items on flashcards and wrote down their names.

He later performed exercises to strengthen his left side and upper body.

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

As he was wheeled out of the room, Mullins joked with his family: “Thank you for coming.”