LEWISTON – A Lewiston man who was severely injured when struck in the head with an ice chopper in what police suspect was a random robbery has returned to his home for the first time.

Gary St. Hilaire, 44, was in a coma for two weeks and spent the past two months at a Lewiston hospital and a rehab facility in Kennebunkport. Even now, he needs a cane to move about, his right hand is partially paralyzed and he has little feeling in the bottom of his leg.

The attack took place on the night of June 8 at Bartlett and Walnut streets in Lewiston. A 17-year-old was recently arrested on charges of attempted murder, elevated aggravated assault and robbery, but the investigation is continuing.

St. Hilaire remembers little about the attack, but says he was told that at least four people may have been involved. His one distant memory is of someone gesturing him to cross Bartlett Street.

“Somebody called me over,” he told the Sun Journal. “That’s it. That’s all I remember.”

Police say the ice chopper, a long pole with a rigid section of metal at the end that’s used to break up ice, was swung so hard that its blade became embedded in the top of St. Hilaire’s head. Fragments of his skull pierced his brain, and for several days it appeared that he would not survive.

The wound on his head was 9 inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide. There was a chance he would be partially blind and paralyzed if he made it at all.

“The cops told me they found me with both of my pockets pulled out,” St. Hilaire said. “I was jumped by people who wanted money.”

His girlfriend, Linda Therriault, said the worst moments were at the beginning when the family was told he had suffered a major head injury and things could go either way.

“We were on pins and needles for a while,” Therriault said. “The doctors told him it was miraculous how he pulled through.”