Clayton Joudrey recovering after N.S. scallop fishing boat accident

The wife of an experienced scallop fisherman is struggling to cope with the aftermath of a horrible accident earlier this month.

On June 7, Noelle Cloutier's 43-year-old husband, Clayton Joudrey, was seriously hurt. A cable snapped on board the scallop boat he was working on, the Compass Rose II. His injuries were catastrophic — a fractured skull, a fractured eye socket and a broken neck.

At the time of the accident, Cloutier was working at home in Morristown, N.S., and taking care of their seven-year-old son, Xavier.

Her cell phone rang. The caller I.D. indicated it was her husband.

She said she was busy working, so she passed the phone to her son. Her son called back using speaker phone. Cloutier heard a woman's voice answer. 

"At that point my heart sank and that's all I remember. I don't remember anything more, other than I was in my car 20 minutes later driving to New Brunswick to be with him."

Lucky to be alive

Cloutier starting driving to Saint John along with her son and a family friend, despite her husband's attempts to downplay his injuries.

Cloutier says her husband sounded surprisingly coherent over the phone before he was heavily medicated in Saint John.

When Cloutier arrived at the hospital, the gravity of the situation sunk in.

"His eyes were black, completely swollen. He was immobilized. He couldn't talk. They had him really doped up on medication to keep him out of pain which I truly appreciate."

At the hospital, Cloutier learned that as one of the traps was being pulled up to the boat, the cable snapped — sending a heavy piece of metal into Joudrey's forehead. 

"It went right through all the bones and right through the membrane that goes between your skull and your brain. It went right through that membrane and his brain was exposed."

Cloutier says her husband is lucky to have survived the accident. 

"The doctors in Saint John and Halifax have both said that he's in the one percentile that survive this kind of injury. He should be dead — just from the smash in the head, never mind the broken neck."

Over the coming months, Joudrey will face a difficult recovery. His doctors want to encourage as much natural healing as possible. But, Cloutier said the doctors have talked about radical surgery.

"They want to see if his skull and his neck will heal on their own … The surgery for his forehead and his face is very, very serious. They'll have to cut him from ear to ear and basically peel his face off and reconstruct his forehead. So, they're really scared about that."

Cloutier believes the accident isn't anyone's fault because the boat is properly maintained.

Road to recovery

Joudrey is already starting to bounce back, despite brief seizures from brain damage.

"He's recovering really fast, really well. He's still in a lot of pain … But, he's joking around."

Now that Joudrey is out of the woods, Cloutier says she must now balance taking care of her husband, looking after their son, and continuing to work.

"I am exhausted. I run rampant. I need to dress him. You know, he's starting to feed himself on his own now. He's starting to get used to the neck brace. They weren't able to put a halo on him because of his fractured forehead."

Cloutier said some of the people involved in the rescue from the Digby ferry, the Princess of Acadia, have been a pillar of support. She says the skipper has called her every day, and one of the hospital's nurses reached out to her on Facebook. 

Though, she says the captain of the Compass Rose II has been having a tough time.

"For probably about four days, the skipper was, honestly, in worse shape than I was. And I was in pretty bad shape. He was lost, dazed, confused scared -- just out of his mind. And he said that everybody on the boat was pretty much [the same] … really scared for Clayton's life." 

Despite everything, Cloutier said her husband has only one thing on his mind.

"He wants to go back fishing. He's ready to go today. He's bound and determined to go back fishing."

In the meantime, the family is going ahead with their plan to move to Digby. Before the accident, they decided it would be better to live closer to the wharf Joudrey fishes out of. 

"It's what my husband loves to do. So, if he wants to go back and he's able to go back, I'll be a nervous wreck … but I can't stop him from doing something that he loves."