Family of Dublin woman who suffered major brain injury in fall and came back from the dead fundraising to ‘bring Susan home’

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0 screenshot wwwgofundmecom 20210925 13 11 40.png
0 screenshot wwwgofundmecom 20210925 13 11 40.png

The family of a Dublin woman who suffered a major brain injury in a fall and came back from the dead are fundraising to try to ‘bring Susan home’.

Susan Kelly, 57, fell down the stairs at her home in Edenmore and was pronounced dead after being rushed to hospital.

But a twinkle in her eye led to surgeons keeping her alive, and now she wants to come home after more than a year in various hospitals.

Her humble home, however, needs at least €130,000 worth of work to be adapted to Susan’s new needs.

Her sister, Joan, is leading a fundraising campaign which so far has seen over €20,000 of that €130k raised.

Joan spoke to us about Susan’s horrible accident, her miraculous recovery, and how desperate her and her family are to get Susan home.



Joan, Susan, and their mother on a trip to London last year, before Susan’s accident

Joan told Dublin Live about the day of Susan’s accident: “She was at home, I was talking to her on the phone.

“She went upstairs to charge her phone. I didn’t hear from her after that, but she has so many friends, I presumed she was onto someone else.

“What happened was, she slipped down the stairs, and it resulted in a major brain injury.”

Susan lay at the bottom of the stairs for hours, until eventually a close friend of hers, actress Neili Conroy, called around after not being able to reach her.

“She went around because Susan hadn’t been on her phone since 4 o’clock the previous day,” Joan recalls.

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“The door was unlocked, and when she opened it Susan was on the stairs.

“We reckon she had been there for sixteen hours.”

Susan was rushed to Beaumont Hospital after she was found, but after some time, she was pronounced dead.

However, what happened next Joan can only describe as a “miracle”.

“We got to Beaumont after about an hour and a half,” she remembers.

“They had been working on her and they said she had passed.

“We went in to say goodbye… but then something happened, she tried to flick one of her eyes open, just slightly.



Susan in hospital after her accident

“How the surgeon even saw it at the time we don’t know, but we were called back in to say that she had a chance.

“They were going to try to release some of the pressure on her brain.”

The surgery was successful, and Susan was given a second chance.

But life would never be the same for her, or her family and friends.

“She was in ICU for three months, and then a high-dependency unit for five months,” Joan remembers.

“We were told that she would just be in a vegetative state, that she probably wouldn’t recognise us or anything.

“She’s a miracle as far as that, although she still has a lot of challenges with her brain injury.”

Joan recalled one of the first times Susan reacted to her surroundings after months of treatment.

The family were calling her via FaceTime, and they decided to play some music from one of her favourite artists.

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Susan in hospital after her accident

“She’s mad into Damien Dempsey, went to his gigs all the time,” Joan said.

“We’re from Donaghmede originally, and she lives in Edenmore so she knows them all.

“We played his music over the phone to her, and it was the first time she actually had some kind of reaction. She looked around and started smiling.

“It was mad, it was weird, it wasn’t even a big song! We played this mad rebel song, and next of all she started making those movements.”

Susan has come a long way since then. She’s made fantastic progress since moving to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.

She’s regained some movement in her arms and her speech. She remebers her family and friends.

Most importantly, she remembers her humble Edenmore home – a home she is desperate to get back to.



Susan arriving home

Sadly, it isn’t quite as simple as Susan, Joan, or their family would like it to be.

Susan’s home is going to need an extension, a downstairs bedroom and bathroom, and supports for her now that she is wheelchair-bound.

“We have an older sister, Susan has a daughter Jess, she’s 30, and my mam’s 82,” Joan said.

“Between us all we’re just trying to do what we can.

“The quote we were given was €130,000, so that’s what we’re asking for.

“There’s funding we can apply for for €30,000, but her house needs more than that. We haven’t even thought about care or physio. We’e applied for care packages, we don’t know what we’ll get.

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“She’ll never go upstairs in the house again. We have to get a bedroom and a bathroom downstairs, and to be able to fit a wheelchair in through the house.

“When she came to visit for one day, she had a temporary portable wheelchair. A normal wheelchair wouldn’t go through.”

The family have been told that it would be easier for Susan to stay in the care home – but her overwhelmed reaction to coming home, beautifully documented by this video of her journey, show’s just how much her home means to her.


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And it’s why the family won’t stop until Susan is able to come home.

“She will have to stay in the care home until such time that we can get her home, but she’s devastated,” Joan said.

“She trusts us, and I keep telling her to hang in there, I’m telling her we’ll get her home.

“But all she’s asking us is ‘when can I go home’, and I think the visit was just to show her that her house was still there.

“Now her house needed loads of work anyway, but she didn’t care. That’s her home, but she can’t get through the house as it is in the wheelchair.

“It’s mad, you never realise how quickly things can change.

“We have been told that she’d be better off in a care home, but not her, not at 57. All she wants to do is go home.”

You can donate to Susan’s GoFundMe by clicking here.

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