Meet Brad and Catie

What keeps you going when everything in your life has changed?

The last thing Brad remembers is putting on his helmet. It was October 2023, and the active 68-year-old was out driving a motorcycle—a regular activity for his part-time job in retirement. But that morning, everything would change. He was hit by a car and would spend the next three weeks in a coma in an intensive care unit (ICU) near his home in Rhode Island.

Brad’s daughter, Catie, was a nursing student at the time. She spent every day in the ICU with her dad and his care team, who highly recommended Spaulding Hospital Cambridge for Brad’s recovery. “Once he got to Spaulding, it was the first time I remember leaving him at the hospital and feeling a sense of calm,” Catie says. “It was like a sigh of relief.”

Brad arrived at Spaulding Cambridge with a tracheostomy and feeding tube, unable to move his legs, and in need of intensive wound care. The team was ready for him, working daily to help him return to eating, breathing on his own, and getting back on his feet. “You have a lot of time to think when you’re lying there,” says Brad. “I had the mindset of, ‘If I want to get back to my life, I’ve got to work at it.’”

At Spaulding, every patient is driven by a personal “why”—a reason to rebuild after injury or illness. Your support as a donor helps provide the “how”—the expert care and innovative therapies that make recovery possible. Spaulding donors play a critical role in our life-changing care.

The experience at Spaulding Cambridge was transformational for both Brad and Catie. Each day, Catie saw improvements in his condition. The first time Brad was able to stand on his own, his physical therapist asked Catie if she’d like to give her dad a hug. It was the first time they shared a full hug since his accident.

“My career plans changed when Dad got to Spaulding,” Catie says. “I saw how the nursing teams here work with the therapy disciplines and specialists not just to stabilize the patient and send them on their way, but to give people their lives back—their freedom and independence and autonomy. I knew this was where I needed to be.”

Catie joined the Spaulding Cambridge team as a Registered Nurse the following summer—now taking care of patients on the same unit where her dad recovered. For his part, Brad is back home and fully independent. “Every day I can help our patients and families feel better,” Catie says, “because I know what it’s like to be on the other side.”