Woman wakes from coma to find fiancé ghosted her and moved on with someone else

8 June 2022, 08:47 | Updated: 8 June 2022, 09:14

A woman has revealed she woke from a three month coma after a horror accident in Canada to discover her fiancé had blocked her on social media and moved on with another woman.
A woman has revealed she woke from a three month coma after a horror accident in Canada to discover her fiancé had blocked her on social media and moved on with another woman. Picture: Brie Duval

By Lauren Lewis

A woman has revealed she woke from a three month coma after a horror accident in Canada to discover her fiancé had blocked her on social media and moved on with another woman.

Listen to this article

Loading audio...

Brie Duval, then 25, who is from Australia but was living in Canada, was out with friends when she fell from a 10m retaining wall outside a rooftop bar and crashed headfirst into the pavement on 29 August.

She was flown to the University of Alberta Hospital with a brain injury and several broken bones and placed in an induced coma.

Doctors gave Duval only a 10 per cent chance of survival but her parents refused to allow the hospital to turn off life support.

Three weeks later, Duval started making slow signs of improvements and three months after the accident, she woke up.

But she experienced amnesia and did not begin to remember her life before the accident, including her fiancé, for another two months.

Duval was then handed back her phone and tried to get in touch with her partner, who had not been to visit her since the accident.

"I opened my phone going to message him when a message pops up from this woman that says I am now with [partner's name]. I have moved him out. He's now living with me and my son, please do not contact him," she told the Mirror.

Duval's partner, who has not been named, had also blocked her on all his social media accounts.

She said: "I have not heard from him since I have been in hospital, he's completely and utterly left me in the dust. So I don't even have closure as to why this happened."

Duval also spent her recovery without her parents who were denied a request to leave Australia for Canada to see their daughter.

Brie Duval, then 25, who is from Australia but was living in Canada, was out with friends when she fell from a 10m retaining wall outside a rooftop bar and crashed headfirst into the pavement on 29 August.
Brie Duval, then 25, who is from Australia but was living in Canada, was out with friends when she fell from a 10m retaining wall outside a rooftop bar and crashed headfirst into the pavement on 29 August. Picture: Brie Duval

Read more: Girl branded 'Nazi transphobe' after questioning trans ideology relapses into anorexia

Australian citizens were not allowed to leave or enter the country during the height of Covid-19 restrictions without special permission.

"[Canadian doctors] told my mum that I had a 10 per cent chance of living and that she should get over to Canada as soon as she could because things weren't looking good," Duval said.

"This was in the peak of Covid, so in Australia, you weren't allowed to leave or enter the country.

"My mum and dad went to the government and asked for special permission to say goodbye to me as things were bad at that point. They refused them, they would not give them a chance and they would not give them a reason, they just flat out said no.

"So my Mum told doctors in Canada to keep my life support on and do not under any circumstances turn that off, which they had to medically abide by."

She added that seeing her parents would have helped "massively" with her recovery.

Read more: Australian court orders Google to pay £411,000 over defamatory YouTube videos

Duval has since moved back to Australia to be close to family and friends.

She said: "Seeing them would have helped. I struggled heavily, I had a near-death experience. I was confused, I was scared, and I would quite literally cry every single day.

"It was definitely something I never want to live through again and I don't want to be apart from my family again."

Duval was kept company in hospital by her best friend Sam, who drove an eight-hour round trip every weekend to see her, and Sam's mum, Sandy.

She said: "Sandy used to come and visit me every day as she lived in the city, she'd make sure I had everything I need as I didn't have my actual mum with me. She'd stay for hours, play board games and keep in contact with my mum.

"She was right in the thick of it."

Read more: Family of British journalist missing in the Amazon urges action

Duval has been sharing her recovery from the traumatic brain injury on her TikTok channel.

She said: "It's been very hard mentally, there's definitely a bit of PTSD from everything that has happened, I'm just trying to sort through my emotions, going through the accident and then having that letdown of a relationship.

"Getting back to normal life, just trying to establish what my new normal is - I couldn't swallow when I first woke up, I've had to try and learn how to walk again, from my waist down to my toes, it feels like it's gone dead. All my muscle was just completely lost as I was laying in bed.

"It's frustrating not being able to do the things I want to do, my mental clarity is nowhere near where it used to be, I've got brain fogginess.

"Having a TBI is kind of like having concussion symptoms that are continuing. They don't go away.

"It's a struggle because the thing is, you're not visibly disabled. Like visibly you would look at me and think I was in perfect physical, and mental health.

"I don't look like I have a brain injury but it's a huge part of my life. I'm struggling every single day to function and do simple things that I used to do."

More Latest News

See more More Latest News

More than 2 million drivers are set to hit the road on Good Friday.

Easter Carmageddon: Over two million drivers to hit the road on Good Friday after Storm Nelson travel chaos

Michael Gove has slammed the water firm as a 'disgrace'.

Thames Water bosses branded a ‘disgrace’ as Michael Gove tells firm ‘not to punish consumers’ for its failings

South Africa Bus Crash

Girl, 8, the sole survivor as 45 die in bus crash off South Africa bridge

A spokesman has denied reports the sausage dog could be banned.

The wurst news is over: Germany denies claims of sausage dog ban

Israel Palestinians Britain Aid

UN top court orders Israel to open more land crossings into Gaza

Greece Confidence Vote

Greece’s government survives no-confidence motion called over rail disaster

A council has had to apologise following the incident.

Fury as parents offered version of school class photo without complex needs pupils

Conjoined twin who shot to fame with sister on The Oprah Winfrey Show marries army veteran in private ceremony

Conjoined twin who shot to fame with sister on The Oprah Winfrey Show marries army veteran in private ceremony

Israel Palestinians UN Security Council

Russia ‘abolishes’ monitoring of sanctions on North Korea with UN veto

Firefighters at the scene of a bus crash in Limpopo

Bus plunges from bridge in South Africa and erupts into flames, killing at least 45 and leaving child, 8, as lone survivor

Music-Green Day UN

Green Day to headline UN-backed global climate concert

Exclusive
Starmer has vowed to resurrect Boris Johnson's 'Levelling Up' policy

Failure to ‘level up’ Britain would be ‘catastrophic’, Wes Streeting admits, as Starmer vows to resurrect Johnson policy

Border Force staff will walk out from April 11

Hundreds of Border Force officers at Heathrow Airport to stage four-day strike

Stephen Bear was ordered to pay Ms Harrison £5,000.

Disgraced reality TV star Stephen Bear ordered to pay £27,000 over revenge porn conviction or face nine months in jail

Sam Bankman-Fried

FTX founder Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for crypto fraud

Exclusive
Covid no excuse for death of Finley Boden who was murdered by drug-addled parents, child protection chief says

Covid no excuse for death of Finley Boden who was murdered by drug-addled parents, child protection chief says