Edmonton man beaten in Dominican Republic to have piece of skull replaced

Not many people are able to say they can actually feel their brain.

Chase Delorme-Rowan can even see it pulsing.

The 18-year-old lifts his curly brown hair to flash a long, red scar on the right side of his head, above his ear, where a piece of his skull is gone.

The missing bone fragment has left a dent in the area where skin now sags onto his brain, rubbing it and sometimes tickling it, too.

“It’s itchy. I could scratch my brain, you know. It’s hard to explain,” Delorme-Rowan said in an interview at his Edmonton home.

The skull piece was removed and tossed away by doctors who performed brain surgery on him in the Dominican Republic in January. His skull was cracked from top to bottom in an attack at a Punta Cana resort nightclub.

Delorme-Rowan said he doesn’t remember most of the night.

His family was on the Caribbean island for a family vacation and to celebrate his 18th birthday. He and his siblings went to the club on Jan. 14.

“I went out for a smoke, then I got back in and I sat down and it just went black.”

He said he later learned he had been lifted by the collar of his shirt, shaken, then slammed head-first onto a tile floor.

A Canadian man who was also a guest at the resort was charged with assault causing bodily harm.

After the attack, a blood clot the size of a grapefruit formed inside Delorme-Rowan’s skull, shifting his brain a bit to the right. Doctors had to remove part of his skull to get to the clot and to give his swollen brain room to recover and stop bleeding, said his mother.

His skull stayed open for five days, and a surgeon stitched him up without putting the piece back.

Nearly three weeks later and still in a coma, Delorme-Rowan was flown to an Edmonton hospital with his mother.

When he woke up for the first time in February, he said he couldn’t stop flailing his right arm and both legs because the right side of his brain had been deprived of too much oxygen.

His left arm was paralyzed.

Doctors have taught him how to use the arm again and how to walk, talk, eat and drink.

Cindy Rowan said her son has struggled with drinking water the most.

“It kept on going into his lungs because he didn’t know how to relax the muscle in his throat,” she said while sitting on a couch in her living room.

In March, he was discharged from hospital and returned home, where he continues to use stretch bands for strength training and stack coins to increase hand-eye co-ordination.

“I still struggle with things like tying my shoes,” he said.

His girlfriend visits often. He also loves to eat a lot of “everything,” he said, because he lost 40 pounds in his coma.

Doctors are supposed to fill the hole in his skull with a piece of titanium or plastic later this month.

While he waits, he wears a helmet whenever he stands up or moves around.

“If I hit where my skull is missing, I could die.”

He said he has learned a lot of lessons in the past few months and tries not to dwell on the attack.

“Every day I wake up and I’m grateful to still be here, because I could have passed away,” he said with a smile.

“I’ve started cherishing all the small things. Even just sitting here … I’m happy.”

He’s also proud of all the progress he’s made in his recovery, he said. He just hopes the person who hurt him is brought to justice and questions why the charge wasn’t attempted murder.

His mother said she doesn’t know when the accused is next in court.

For now, she said, her family is focused on her son’s recovery, which could take years.

But Delorme-Rowan said he’s hopeful about the future. He wants to be a photographer one day.

And although he said he’s missing out on starting post-secondary school and socializing with friends, he still gets out for appointments.

He said he was recently at a doctor’s office and someone started talking to him.

“We met a lady who recognized me on the news,” he said. “My life has just gone uphill since I got back home.”