Victoria filmmaker injured in Thailand protests awakens after brain surgery to remove shrapnel
Victoria filmmaker Chandler Vandergrift, who underwent two surgeries after being hit with shrapnel from a grenade attack in Thailand’s violent protests this week, is now able to communicate, a Victoria friend said yesterday.
John Orser, a filmmaker and documentarian who runs a company called Visual Art Studios on Old West Saanich Road, recently returned from Thailand, but planned to head back when he learned his friend had been injured. That trip was delayed, however, when he received an e-mail from Don Vandergrift, Chandler’s father, who was headed to Thailand. Chandler’s brother, Brandon Vandergrift, and Toronto Star Asia bureau chief Bill Schiller were at the hospital.
Orser said the e-mail from Don and another note from Schiller described the 37-year-old’s condition as improving.
“He’s semi-conscious and heavily sedated, but he’s breathing without a ventilator,” Orser said. Despite having a tube in his mouth, Vandergrift was able to joke in writing with his brother.
Schiller said via e-mail that Vandergrift’s progress has been “remarkable.”
Nicole Sorochan, who is co-producing a documentary about the unrest in southern Thailand with Vandergrift, described encouraging signs soon after the surgery to remove shrapnel from Vandergrift’s brain, saying he appeared to recognize others in the room.
Orser said shrapnel pierced Vandergrift’s brain, abdomen and a lung, and he has reduced mobility on his left side.
“They don’t know if he’s suffered any permanent neurological impairment,” Orser said.
Orser did not know if plans are being made to transport Chandler back to Canada, but Orser, who has filmed in Thailand for the past 27 years, said the Bangkok Christian Hospital is an excellent facility.
In his last conversation with Chandler the day before he was injured, Orser said, he warned him of the intensity of the conflict and heightened danger, saying both the protesters and government forces were targeting journalists.
Orser said Chandler was nevertheless committed to the “necessary work” international journalists are doing in Thailand.
He said Chandler wore a motorcycle helmet for protection.
“Sometimes, when you’re on the ground, it’s like being in a hockey game,” Orser said. “You don’t know how intense it is because you’re in the game, and you tend to lose a little bit of perspective.”
Chandler is originally from Calgary, but has lived in Victoria for most of the past decade. He graduated in 2006 from the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Victoria, before taking graduate studies in conflict analysis and management at Royal Roads University.
Schiller reported in the Toronto Star that Vandergrift will graduate from Royal Roads in June with a master’s degree in Asian Studies. Schiller wrote that the Vandergrift family learned of Chandler’s wounding when his mother in Calgary turned on the television morning news and saw her son being carried out of the battle on a stretcher.
Vandergrift has been in Thailand for several years working on a documentary about the Muslim-led insurgency, and is the second Canadian injured in Bangkok in the past week. Journalist Nelson Rand was shot three times while reporting on the protests.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Victoria+filmmaker+injured+Thailand+protests+awakens+after+brain+surgery+remove+shrapnel/3057271/story.html#ixzz0of4bn1nW
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