Brady and Sara
Barry and Sara Brady were together 37 years before Brady’s passing.
It ended in a hospital after a fall that never should have happened. Their nearly four decades-long love affair was supposed to have had a “happily ever after” ending. Instead, Sara, who lovingly always called her husband, Barry Brady, by his last name, was left with the same questions we all face when a spouse dies: What now? What do I do next? How could this have happened?
When they met in the early 80s, Sara was a 26-year-old Orlando Sentinel reporter covering the police beat, and Brady was a Seminole County Sheriff’s Deputy whose name badge read, “B. Brady.” So Sara just started calling him “Brady.” It stuck. Their professional relationship lasted about a year. And then, they became a couple. The red-headed, handlebar-mustached, Newark, New Jersey native was 13 years older than she, and well established in life as a single dad and a police officer. But she was established in her own right with a house, a car, and a career. For both of them, it was the right time for a relationship. “He made my heart race. Always.”
“Brady gave off a scrappy persona but he was actually a sweetie pie. He found joy in the smallest things like having a couple of bowls of ice cream, holding my hand when we watched TV, or telling me one of his stupid jokes that made me laugh every time I heard it.” He was one of six boys who were split up in two’s after their father abandoned the family in Newark. Around age 4, Brady and his younger brother were placed in a Catholic orphanage where they lived for several years. The streetwise Jersey kid frequently roamed the city where he found plenty of opportunity for trouble. It was that early childhood that taught him how tough and precarious life could be. As a result, his life’s code was about choice; “You can choose to be happy or you can choose to be miserable. I choose to be happy,” she emphasizes. “Our life together was just that – happy.”
The Bradys’ situation was different from most of us in one very important way; as a patrol deputy, the couple was ever conscious that his life could end unexpectedly on any given day. Because of that, they never missed a morning coffee together and a goodbye kiss. “I walked him out to his patrol car every day. And he always did the same with me when I would leave the house.” In a larger sense, they were also better prepared than many for the possibility of death, with both knowing where important papers were, how the financials and bills worked, having wills written, etc.
When Brady joyfully retired after 33 years in law enforcement, he was in great shape and ran a six-mile route three or four times a week. Sara loved hearing friends’ sightings of him trotting by and laughed when they marveled at how much he sweat. But in 2018 at age 74, Brady suddenly stopped running — without explanation. Not long after, Sara began noticing slight physical and behavioral changes including his pupils no longer dilating, occasional falling, choking and slight cognitive shifts. They feared the early stages of dementia.
The diagnosis came hard and fast: Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), an atypical form of Parkinson’s disease, determined to be caused by his exposure to Agent Orange when he served as a helicopter crew chief in Vietnam decades earlier. It wasn’t until a straight-talking VA neurologist told Brady to his face that he would either die by falling and “splitting his head open or choking to death,” that they truly realized the severity of his condition and their future.
Suddenly, Sara wasn’t just a spouse but a primary caregiver. Brady’s cognitive abilities and mobility were indeed declining; the formerly robust and athletic deputy eventually needed a walker and began speaking less and less. “One of the biggest things I missed as his health changed was our conversations; we were chatterboxes and talked all day to each other. We joked and poked at each other constantly and all of that just vanished.”
As his PSP progressed in ways more similar to ALS than typical Parkinson’s characteristics, Brady began choking and falling daily. “I lived in fear 24 hours a day that he would suffer more and more and then die a horrible death right in front of me. It was just terrifying but I had to act like everything was just fine.”
In typical Brady style, he remained fearless and full of humor. “One afternoon, he fell and couldn’t get up and when I offered my hand, he refused it. I got irritated and said ‘Why won’t you let me help you?’ and he snapped back, ‘You’ll laugh at me.’ I told him, ‘Brady, I’ve been laughing at your for over 35 years, I’m not going to stop now.’ He looked at me, laughed himself and said, ‘Well, okay then and gave me his hand.”
“I look back and now have a clearer understanding of just how overwhelmed I was about everything.”
The beginning of the end — “the fall” — happened Friday, July 9, 2021, the morning after Sara had taken Brady in the middle of the night to the Advent Health Orlando Emergency Room near their home. He had been choking uncontrollably. After hours in the ER, “the doctor told us he was stable, that he did not have pneumonia but still needed to be admitted to recover. I was relieved.”
Thinking her husband was safe, Sara went home for about an hour to let their dog out and manage some business issues. Moments after she left, Brady managed to unhook himself from the monitors, climb over the bed’s guardrails and out of his hospital bed. He got to the nurses’ station and asked to use the bathroom and instead of being assisted, a nurse pointed to a bathroom down the hall. But instead of going to the bathroom, Brady managed to walk out of the hospital’s secured ambulance entrance unnoticed by staff and without his walker, which Sara had taken home with her. When he reached one of the city’s busiest intersections nearby, he tried to cross but fell, his face hitting the street. A woman passing by pulled him to safety but he was badly hurt, sustaining a fractured jaw, palate and cheek. He suffered a gash in his forehead and both arms were badly scratched and bloody. Brady later told Sara that he fell multiple times walking to the intersection.
But that day, Sara knew nothing of what happened until she returned and an ER nurse “ranted,” complaining that Brady had left and gotten hurt. “I had no clue what she was barking about. He was fine when I left him. I was so rattled; she talked to me like it was my fault. I have profound respect for nurses, but this was horrible. Later in the day, I learned that the hospital didn’t know he was missing.” When Sara saw him being wheeled back into his room, Brady was covered in blood, slightly confused and couldn’t speak clearly. Over the next three days in the hospital, his condition deteriorated.
It wasn’t until the early afternoon that Sara learned the details of what had happened when the paramedic who treated him in the road came to check on him. “That’s when he told me and Brady’s son, Scott, that he had called the ER and specifically asked if they were missing a patient and was told no. He told me the ER called back moments later and confirmed Brady was missing and said to bring him back.”
The lack of communication, attention and accountability left Sara frightened, frustrated and angry. Brady’s fall occurred between 7 and 8 a.m on Friday, July 9, 2021. She says no one from risk management, the ER, or administration came to talk to her or check on him. It wasn’t until late Saturday afternoon after her relentless demands to speak to someone with authority, she met with an administrative nurse. By 10 a.m. Monday, hospital administrators began visiting, en masse. “When they actually saw Brady, several of them gasped; he looked that bad.”
Adding to her angst, the hospital’s response to her entreaties didn’t occur until after she began preparing to transfer him to Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC), a competing hospital in the area. At one point, a nursing officer privately and tearfully stepped into the room and acknowledged, “This should never have happened” and promised a complete review, which Sara believes happened but questions its thoroughness since no one spoke ever to her.
“Over the weekend, I watched him get sicker and sicker but I couldn’t get anyone to tell me what was happening to him. I got so scared that he was going to die so I decided to transfer him. Within a couple of hours after being admitted at ORMC, the trauma team told me that Brady had two kinds of pneumonia. I’m no doctor, but that clearly didn’t happen in the short ambulance ride over.” After a brutal three weeks in critical care at the second hospital, Brady died.
Throughout his career, Brady made it his practice to never write tickets to nurses or doctors because he said those were the people who would take care of him if he got hurt. Sara rues the irony: “Brady survived being shot at and shot down in Vietnam and a 33-year career in law enforcement. He did not survive a visit to the emergency room.”
While litigation was an option, Sara says, “I thought long and hard about it, but decided I didn’t want to live in a bottomless pit of anger. It wouldn’t bring him back. But I’m reminded of this nightmare frequently because I drive through that intersection and past the hospital regularly.”
Despite the couple’s preparation for either of them passing, Sara discovered there was much for which she was unprepared. For example, she didn’t know what to do about funeral homes or burial arrangements and had to scramble to start that process. She agonized about fulfilling Brady’s son’s request that Brady be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, hundreds of miles away but decided against it (he’s buried near their home in Winter Park, Florida). “While you’re in the middle of dealing with the death of someone you love and managing the logistics of it all, the emotions and influence of family members is real. There’s an added duty to try not to hurt others’ feelings and preferences while trying to deal with your own.”
“I look back and now have a clearer understanding of just how overwhelmed I was about everything I thought I was supposed to do. I wish I would have waited on some things until my heart and head were more in sync. I learned that what you’re supposed to do is whatever works for you; not what everyone else thinks you’re supposed to do.”
For example, Sara wishes she had taken more time before donating his clothes to charity, something that he would have appreciated since he grew up wearing thrift shop clothes. She notes that she had the presence of mind to keep some of her favorites; his blue jeans, his somewhat crass New Jersey slogan T-shirts, and shoes, including the boots he wore with his uniform. “There’s just something special about those boots; I feel his presence when I Iook at them.”
After feeling at loose ends, Sara got the idea for creating New Chapters to help her deal with Brady’s death — not as a vanity project, but as a way to give herself a bit of purpose as she moves through life without him. The idea came from the uncomfortable, awkward and unexpected experiences she had as well as those she heard about from others. And while she received piles of pamphlets, books and guidance to more resources about widowhood and grief, she found most to be pretty academic or off-putting. ”What I found most helpful were the personal anecdotes that were told to me. When I posted the idea of New Chapters, I was immediately inundated by those wanting to share their stories. I think gathering those kinds of personal experiences in one place could be helpful to someone looking for a comfortable, quiet place to find even the smallest nugget of help if for nothing more than affirmation that you’re not going crazy. It’s normal.”
It’s true that everyone grieves differently. Sara says she’s not a crier and loves talking about Brady. “It makes me happy to talk about him and all his antics.” Her office has a “wall of love” she created, filled with photos of Brady showcasing and celebrating their life together.
“It’s been just over two years and I feel like half of me is gone forever. He’s in my head all the time. But I also feel like he’s keeping an eye on me so that I’m safe,” she says while twirling the necklace she wears with his wedding ring on it. Sara’s life is moving forward. She’s still working and socializing with friends, but life, obviously, has changed for her. “I always felt fearless with Brady by my side. Now I’m a little more anxious about things. I don’t like walking into the house by myself because I can still feel how the energy has changed, hitting me in the face and letting me know that he’s gone. I’m like everyone else who’s lost their mate; I have to find to keep working to find my new chapter.”
When asked if she had second guessed anything as Brady’s caregiver, Sara sighs and explains that caregivers do the best they can. Nevertheless, they can always articulate things they wish they would have done differently. “Emergency rooms are stressful places; the medical teams are busy and mistakes happen. Hospitals need to be accountable. That’s why it’s important to have someone in the ER with you at all times when you’re a patient; it’s the most heartbreaking lesson of my life. I will never forgive the hospital for their many failures and disregard for my husband, but I can never forgive myself for leaving him there.”
It is her deepest regret — leaving Brady alone in the ER, where he should have been safe. After his fall, she asked him why he left the hospital. His answer was both romantic and crushing. “I was coming to be with you. I wanted to be with you. ”
Written by Peter King
