Between the Plates

A call in the early hours of one morning brought news that Scott and Janet Simpson's youngest child was being taken to the hospital, and it changed their family's course for good.

That son, Andrew Simpson, is the narrator. At eighteen he sustained a traumatic brain injury and remained in a coma for eighteen days. The book combines his own account with the perspectives of the family members and others who supported him through the crisis, and it shows the faith in God that carried them through.

The opening chapters revisit the day of the accident through several relatives, who describe what they witnessed and their certainty that Andrew would live. Later sections cover the difficult road of recovery and the ways the brain injury has continued to shape his life, more than ten years on. Andrew recalls his first memory after waking from the coma and the highs and lows that followed.

He also writes about learning to live with the long-term effects of the injury, which he attributes to his own actions, and about how those difficult years led him to a lasting faith in God.