Positivity: Two months in a coma but he’s back now
April 29, 2007
Just less than a year ago, Michael Kemp was clinging to life in a hospital bed after surviving an auto wreck that killed his mother. His prognosis was doubtful.
Yesterday, he was greeted with thunderous applause as he threw the first pitch during the Derry Little League’s opening day. Erik Brochu, his former coach, yelled, “Welcome back, Michael!”
Kemp, 13, spent more than two months in a coma at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon after his mother’s car collided with a dump truck on Route 28 in Derry on June 8, 2006.
His mother, Ritarose Kemp, who taught preschool in Derry, died the next day. She was 34.
Kemp, who now lives with his aunt in Somerville, Mass., started attending the seventh grade part-time in January. He spent months in rehab after coming out of the coma, he said, and was happy to be back on the field yesterday.
“I wish I was still on the team,” he said, standing on O’Hara Field after the opening-day ceremonies.
Kemp, riding in a police cruiser, led the opening-day parade yesterday, which went from MacGregor Park and through downtown. When he arrived at the field, Derry Police Capt. Vernon Thomas gave him a hockey stick signed by members of the Boston Bruins on behalf of his department.
Kemp is still recovering and has some visible scars, but otherwise is doing better than anyone expected. During the accident, he was sitting in the passenger’s side, which received the brunt of the impact. He was bleeding from the head as rescuers extricated him from the 1988 Chevy Celebrity.
Now, Kemp said he wants to play baseball for a team in his new hometown. His left arm was broken in the crash and his right arm is still getting back to normal, he said.
“For some reason, my right arm went stiff,” he said.
His aunt, Sandi Kemp, said her nephew has been handling his mother’s death as best as can be expected. He misses her, she said, but he believes she’s in good hands now.
“‘Mom’s in heaven now,’ that’s what he says,” she said. “And he knows that she’s in a happier place.”
She said her nephew also misses New Hampshire and his old friends. He has been doing well in school, but he was devastated when he received a C in one class. He’s usually a straight-A student, she said.
Brochu, the former coach, said he’s surprised that Kemp has been recovering so well. No one expected him to ever come out of the coma, he said, and it’s a miracle he survived at all.
“Everything led to: He had no chance,” he said.
His teammates all wore white armbands with Kemp’s number on it for the remainder of the last season. The coach’s wife, Natalie, had her CCD students make him get-well cards.
Natalie Brochu said she knew the boy’s mother and has kept in touch with the family. When he came out of the coma, she said, he had to learn how to do basic functions all over again. She was in tears watching him on the field yesterday.
“It was a miracle to see him walking, throwing a ball and talking to us,” she said.
She added: “He’s proof that miracles happen.”
