Last week I received a phone call from a man in Coquitlam who shared with me the abbreviated version of the incredible story of his son’s recovery from a serious car accident near Merritt in 2006.

The short version goes like this: Michael Coss was travelling to Kamloops for work when his van flipped and he was seriously injured, spending the next seven months in a coma — from which he has been recovering since.

The longer version, which I pieced together using some of what’s been written about him, goes like this: Coss was on his way to Kelowna for a promotional golf event for Molson, the company he was a sales representative for at the time, with his wife and infant twins.

On the Coquihalla about 19 kilometres south of Merritt, he lost control of the van and it rolled several times.

One of the twins was injured but recovered, and his wife and the infant girl made it out OK as well.

Coss was not so lucky and sustained serious, widespread brain injuries, which put him in a coma.

Eventually, his family decided to have him try hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which involves a patient going into a pressurized oxygen chamber.

Throughout the treatments, Coss’ condition made small improvements, starting with simply opening his eyes on command.

After about 275 treatments over two-and-a-half years, his condition had improved enough that he could enter an assisted living and rehabilitation facility for people with brain injuries in Langley.

Fast forward to today, and Coss continues to work on his recovery, and has accomplished simply amazing things.

He is re-learning to walk and walked as far as 2.5 km in the Sun Run in Vancouver.

He is also the author of a book called Courage to Come Back, which he typed with one finger.

His story is so inspiring, it even led to his now-retired neurologist to produce a 45-minute-long documentary on his recovery.

It’s not widely understood under which particular circumstances a comatose patient can benefit from oxygen therapy, and as technology continues to evolve, so too do the medical mysteries of health-care technology.

However, it’s what goes on inside the brain when a person is in a coma that is the real mystery.

In 1984, 19-year-old Terry Wallis suffered brain injuries in Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains when the pickup truck he was joyriding in with his friends lost control and skidded down an embankment.

He spent some months in a coma, then entered what doctors called a minimally conscious state — basically, his consciousness was severely altered, but he was able to show some evidence of self awareness.

That self-aware behaviour can be as subtle as the blink of an eye or movement of a pinkie finger in response to commands or questions.

Then, in 2003, after being mute for 19 years, he correctly verbally identified the woman coming to see him as his mother.

His brain had essentially made new connections while he was in a nearly comatose state, rewiring itself around injured areas of his brain.

Stevie Wonder went into a four-day coma in 1973 after a car accident. When he awoke, he had lost part of his sense of smell. Of course, that never stopped him from making countless more hits and playing tours for legions of adoring fans.

American actor Gary Busey was in a coma for 33 days after a motorcycle crash in 1988. He was not wearing a helmet when his bike hit a patch of gravel going 40 miles an hour. He is now an advocate for traumatic injury prevention.

In 2004, Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne went into a coma for eight days after his ATV crashed at his English estate.

He hit a pothole, flipped over the front and the vehicle landed on top of him, crushing his chest.

For a man whose lifestyle has tempted death once or twice before, coming back from that coma is nothing short of a miracle.

While the scope of mysteries relating to the brain is immense, perhaps one of the most marvellous mysteries is the brain’s ability to rewire itself to circumvent traumatized areas.

The resourceful brain of each person mentioned above has found those ways.