A YOUNG mother fighting for her life since an assault left her with a severe brain injury six months ago has been moved to a different hospital for further therapy.
Jolene Corr (26) was horrifically beaten in her home in Downpatrick on December 1. The mother-of-one, originally from Beechmount in west Belfast, was set upon in her new home late in the evening.
The trained beautician was left with a severe brain injury, a broken jaw, 49 bruises all over her body, facial injuries and an ear injury. A man has been charged with attempted murder in connection with the assault.
Since the attack and until recently, Joleen had remained on a Neurological ward in the Royal Victoria Hospital. Doctors have told her devastated parents that it is unlikely that the young woman will recover as the left side of her brain is dead. The stem of the brain is also damaged.
Recently, Ms Corr was moved to Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast where she is being treated in a specialist brain injury clinic. Her mother, Carol said her daughter had been moved so she can be given “more therapy”. “In Musgrave she goes upstairs to a big gym to do physio,” the mother-of-five said.
“They do all the work with the her limbs. She is paralysed from the neck down. She can’t move any limbs. Her eyes open but she doesn’t respond.”
Carol said her daughter was hoisted out of bed into a specialist wheelchair last week and the family were allowed to take her outside for a while. She said the 26-year-old had also appeared to focus on a photo of her little boy and also turned her head when she heard her mother’s voice.
“They have told us if there any recovery it will be minimum,” she said. “If she was going to come out of it, they said she would have come round by now. Jolene has went against the odds. She has a very strong heart and she is fighting.
“They only keep them for three and a half-months and then, there will be another plan after that”.
Carol said the response and support from her family and the community had been “amazing”.
“I miss her,” she said. “I just get this pain in my heart. You just wish she could walk in the door and be here with us. She will never be the Jolene she was. You always have that wee bit of hope.”