Ian Byington of San Juan Update shared this Aug. 7 report on Gary Bowman, who is recovering from injuries incurred in a motorcycle accident:

I went by Islands Convalescent Center (ICC) Tuesday to drop in on Gary Bowman.

You’ll remember Gary was riding his motorbike on June 26 and hit a deer, and the force of the collision threw him 40 feet. He was flown off to Harborview Medical Center, where he was in a coma for a week before he started to come around. He was able to come back to the island in mid-July, and was mending at the ICC until this week, when he found he had been accepted into a program for treating head-injured adults at the University of Washington Hospital.

His wife Yvonne says they’re working him pretty hard, and he’s pretty proud that he can do some things he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do. He had a nearly hour-long walk yesterday, spent a couple of hours working on simple everyday tasks, and is doing puzzles and other mind exercise to sharpen his mental acuity.

She says he keeps the physical therapists laughing and has been doing everything cheerfully. The present goal is to learn to walk on his own, and to continue to get better at everyday things.

Yvonne says she hopes to be back at the post office working next week, and she wants to thank everyone for all the love, support, prayers and help they have offered (including the good folks at the ICC, as well as the EMTs and the Sheriff’s Department). She says the island has given her and Gary a lot of strength.