The victim of a violent, targeted, attack outside his home in Chemainus earlier this month has been taken off life support but still has a long road of recovery ahead.
Dakota “Cody” Dash was beaten in his driveway by at least two assailants on the evening of Nov. 4. He’s been in hospital ever since.
His mother, Cora Dash, said Cody is “recovering slowly.”
“They took him off life support and everything like that on Friday [Nov. 20] and he started breathing on his own and moving around,” she said. “Friday we were planning the funeral, Saturday we were thinking of long-term care.”
Cora said Cody will remain at Victoria General Hospital for upwards of six months undergoing therapy and rehabilitation. “He’s going to be there for quite a while but he’s survived everything so far,” she said.
Cody is not expected to make a full recovery and will face ongoing issues moving forward. Just what those issues are, however, remain to be seen.
“We don’t know yet because he hasn’t been really assessed by the physio team and stuff like that,” Cora said. “He’s not talking. He’s very aggressive right now and that’s due to the head injury,” she added. “He wants to get up but he can’t.”
Cody’s mom believes he will walk again but he may have trouble speaking thanks to various injuries including those to his brain affecting his long and short-term memories.
“It’s kind of like a guessing game to see where he’s going to go and what he’s going to do,” she said.
A broken right hand may also limit future mobility.
“The doctor told us that with his type of injury, there are several things they don’t know. It depends on how much his brain heals,” Cora said. “It’s hard to say where he’s going to go from one day to the next but he’s definitely on a mode of recovery of some kind.”
It’ll be slow going.
Mounties have continued their investigation into the beating and Cora believes tips have been received by members at the local detachment.
“They want to make sure that they have enough evidence to make an arrest so that it would stick,” she said. “It’s a slow process but I want them to take their time so that when they apprehend these people, it’s going to stick.”