DeafBlind man seriously injured after being hit by elderly driver

A 29-year-old DeafBlind man from Nova Scotia, Canada, Damien Tomsett, was hit by an SUV as he was walking across a marked crosswalk around noon on March 21. Tomsett was dragged under the SUV for another 30 to 50 feet until other bystanders jumped in front of the SUV and told the driver to stop.

Tomsett suffered multiple skull fractures and had bleeding in his brain. He was wearing a cochlear implant and it was destroyed in the crash. He was hospitalized for 11 days.

The driver was an 89-year-old man. He was ticketed for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

Here are comments from Jace Beaver, who is a close friend of Tomsett.

Jace Beaver: He had two skull fractures, brain bleeding, and half of his face is paralyzed. He can’t move it or feel it. He lost his cochlear implant. He doesn’t remember the accident. He woke up in the ICU. He is DeafBlind, so when he woke up, he couldn’t talk, couldn’t hear, and couldn’t see. And the hospital staff didn’t realize he was DeafBlind. They didn’t contact his mother until five hours after he arrived at the hospital. He can speak, yes, but if he can’t hear and can’t see, he doesn’t know what is happening. What would be the point of him speaking if he can’t hear or see? He didn’t have his implant. When he was hit, it flew away on the street somewhere. Luckily, the hospital gave him a loaner implant until he gets a new one.

Alex: Thank you, Beaver, for explaining. He told me that there is a GoFundMe set up for Tomsett. It says he has many injuries that will take months for him to recover from. He is currently staying with his mother and uses a walker to get around. GoFundMe is asking for support for Tomsett’s living expenses because he cannot work for at least six months.

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Tomsett’s mother told CBC News that she believes there need to be stricter laws in Nova Scotia that require the elderly to take driving tests. But a spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Retired Persons said it is “ageism,” discrimination based on age.

CBC said five Canadian provinces currently require elderly drivers to regularly undergo testing to keep their licenses, but Nova Scotia and other provinces don’t have that requirement.

A government official in Nova Scotia told CBC that they could look at proposals on testing the elderly in the future but they have to make sure that their policies are not discriminatory.

The links to the GoFundMe and the CBC article are at the bottom of the transcript.

DEAF NEWSGuest UserApril 7, 2023