But everyone on the beach that day knew that this was an especially joyful occasion, because just eight months earlier the bride was involved in a horrific car accident — hit by a drunk driver — and for the longest time it was not sure if she would survive, let alone exchange vows with her fiancé, Doran Yount, in front of the Pacific Ocean. The bride was Maggie Scott, a Concordia journalism student, occasional Examiner contributor, and Victoria Avenue resident.

You may remember her story. It appeared in this column back in December. As it turned out, that column was one of my pieces nominated for a Quebec Community Newspapers Association award, and won second place in the best column category. It was nice to be recognized, but of course I wish I never had occasion to write it in the first place.

Maggie’s nightmare began on a Nova Scotia highway back on Nov. 24, just a few weeks before she was to finish the last of her exams and move down to sunny San Diego to start a new life.

In a reversal of the usual scenario, the drunk driver died — but Maggie survived to face a long and agonizing recovery process. She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, with injuries that included a broken tibia, fibula, and a femur that was in three pieces — not to mention a serious brain trauma.

“My care in Halifax was phenomenal,” Maggie recalls. “Dr. Sean Christie was my neurosurgeon and Dr. David Amirault was my orthopaedic surgeon. Dr. Amirault operated on me first, soon after I was brought in, and worked for seven hours, I believe, on my leg… He put Humpty Dumpty back together again. It's because of him that I can walk. Dr. Christie saved my brain, and maybe my life, by relieving the pressure caused by all the fluid and blood building up in my skull.

“All of the nursing staff were amazing, too. So kind and caring and easy to be around. They all took really good care of me.”

Now, happy newlywed Maggie Yount is finally starting the life she had been planning at her new home near the ocean — albeit with a few restrictions. She knows she still has a way to go before she is considered fully recovered, but she happily reports that she will resume her writing career when she finishes the classes that were delayed by the accident and are needed to graduate from Concordia. As much as she can, she is getting on with living the good life in southern California.

“I won't be 100 per cent for a few years, most likely,” she says. “I broke 13 bones and had the brain injury — and unfortunately that stuff doesn't heal in six to eight weeks like a broken wrist does… It's weird to think about me as a ‘happy ending’, but it's definitely happy because I survived.”