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On September 9, 2014, 31-year-old Tony Cowan lost control of his car. The crash was devastating and left him with a neck injury so severe, medics didn’t think he would survive. They said it was “unsurvivable” because Cowan’s head had essentially gotten severed from his spine.
Cowan was rushed to the hospital immediately, and for quite some time, no one was certain if he would survive.
But somehow, with the help of doctors, life support, his family, and his fiancée Karen Dawson, Cowan pulled through. Everyone who knew him – his family, his fiancée, and his friends – all knew there was just one thing that kept him going: He wanted to be there with Dawson.
Cowan and Dawson had been together for 12 years. The couple had been meaning to get married for several years now, and until it happened, he would stop at nothing to live a normal life with her.
“He just wanted to live as normal a life as possible,” Dawson said of her fiancé’s determination. “Even though he was the way he was he wanted a normal lifestyle. We would stay up late watching films, order takeaways. We were together all the time.”
Even when Cowan had to return to the hospital to treat the illnesses he contracted following the crash – pneumonia and various chest infections – Dawson went with him so they could be together. There was never a moment she left his side.
After the accident, Dawson became Cowan’s full-time carer, so she saw, first-hand, how Cowan’s pain was affecting him and how he kept holding on in spite of it. “He was strong and determined but it was the pain in the end that took him,” Dawson said.
Beginning around Christmas 2016, Cowan’s health slowly began to deteriorate more and more. Since the accident, Cowan has been in constant pain.
But now, the pain was progressively getting worse. “There was nothing [the doctors] could do,” Dawson explained. “[Cowan] would have carried on living like that, it was just the pain.”
After a long, fraught decision-making process, Cowan decided that he wanted to be taken off his ventilator. He didn’t think he could continue to live a normal life with Dawson with the pain.
But before he passed away, he gave Dawson his dying wish: to marry her and make her his wife.
The couple had originally planned to get married in May 2017, but because Cowan was getting worse with each day, they decided to move the date up to January instead.
Dawson coordinated with the hospital staff to decorate Cowan’s room for the occasion. They used fairy lights to make the room festive, added some ribbon, and used sheets to cover some of the machines and other hospital equipment in the background. Dawson even wore a new blouse – bought on the spur of the moment – to commemorate the occasion.
And so, after 12 years of being together, the couple was finally wed in Cowan’s hospital room.
Four days later, Cowan’s ventilator was switched off and he passed away. Doctors wrote on his death certificate that he had passed away as a result of a road traffic collision on September 9, 2014. He had survived, completely dependent on his ventilator until he asked for it to be turned off.
Cowan was later laid to rest with the wedding dress Dawson would have worn at their ceremony in May.
Proud wife Karen, 29, now recalls with tears, “We got married four days before he died in hospital. It was just with family.
“It was amazing and it was happy and sad because we knew what was coming. He always wanted to get married but we just never got round to it.”
The pain of losing her life partner still weighs heavily on Dawson, but she extends her deepest and fullest thanks to the hospital team who generously helped put together their wedding at the very last minute, in Cowan’s hospital room.
“I just want everyone to know how proud I was of him,” Dawson said after Cowan’s funeral service. “He was strong and determined but it was the pain in the end that took him.
“If you were close he had the biggest heart. There was no one like him in the world.”
Our hearts go out to Dawson and Cowan’s family during this difficult time.
