Vancouver man left with life-altering brain injury after vicious West End assault

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – His life will never be the same.

Forty-six-year-old Andrew Kurra will have to spend the next two years recovering in hospital, after a vicious assault in Vancouver’s West End last month left him with a severe brain injury.

His sister, Pamela Loewen, says Kurra’s life has been changed forever.

“He has got severe brain damage now. The doctors had to take out his frontal lobe to save his life and they said, basically, who he was is no longer there anymore,” she says. “He was in a coma for over a week. He came out of it a little while ago, he can open his eyes and look around and move his fingers a little bit — but that’s it.”

Once he is released from the hospital and completes intense rehabilitation, Loewen says she will be his full-time caregiver, likely for the rest of his life.

“His entire life is going to be recovery. Depending on how severe, we don’t know if he’ll be able to speak, what kind of memory he’ll have left. Will he even recognize me? I don’t know if he does. He looks at me, and I’m hoping he recognizes me, but we don’t know,” she says. “It’s just too early to tell right now. But the doctors did say it’ll pretty much be a life-long recovery, he won’t ever be the same again.”

He will never recover. A man who was viciously assaulted in the West End last month is left with a severe brain injury – and faces a lifetime of medical care. The victim's family, as they launch an online fundraiser to help pay for medical costs. @NEWS1130 pic.twitter.com/9boyGQ3535

— Tarnjit Kaur Parmar (@Tarnjitkparmar) December 24, 2019

Kurra was a property manager at Colliers International Real Estate Management.

Loewen says her brother was well-known and never had any enemies, adding it’s difficult to know the person responsible is still out there.

“It was brutal. When we first came down, we were told he wouldn’t make it, actually — we were expecting him to die. They said the injury was just so severe,” she tells NEWS 1130. “I’d want them to come forward and to own up to what they did. Whether they realized it or not. They completely destroyed his life.”

No arrests have been made and Vancouver police continue to search for witnesses to the assault, which happened on Thurlow Street near Davie Street at around 1:00 a.m. on Nov. 30.

According to police, three people were spotted walking away from the area, however, they have not released a description of the suspect or suspects.

A GoFundMe page has been created to help pay for Kurra’s medical bills.

-With files from Jon Szekeres