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My advice for a newly injury person is to be an advocate for self and not gie up.
was greatly impaired due to the fact that I learned later: I was drowning in my own blood. My teammate and roommate heard my cries for help and called 911.
I later learned that that night, they had stolen a gun from an unlocked vehicle in our apartment complex after a night at a local bar. When they returned to the apartment, they were handling the loaded 9 mm, thinking it was unloaded after removing the clip. There was one bullet left in the chamber, and they pulled the trigger. The bullet raced down the hall through my door into my spine before lodging in my jaw, where it remains to this day.
Continued...
I later learned that night, they had stolen a gun from an unlocked vehicle in our apartment complex after a night at a local bar. When they returned to the apartment, they were handling the loaded 9 mm, thinking it was unloaded after removing the clip. There was one bullet left in the chamber, and they pulled the trigger. The bullet raced down the hall through my door into my spine before lodging in my jaw, where it remains to this day.
As a result of my shooting, my short-lived baseball career ended before it even started. I was a freshman at Scottsdale Community College, and more importantly, I was left paralyzed with C5-C6 quadriplegia.
Waking up each day was a challenge between battling through rehab and trying to prevent secondary conditions that often accompany spinal cord injuries. Learning to breathe independently without the ventilator was the scariest. I will never forget the
prevent secondary conditions that often accompany spinal cord injuries. Learning to breathe independently without the ventilator was the scariest. I will never forget the night it popped off in the hospital and the sensation of feeling like a balloon deflating.
Fortunately, I had a great support system and a number of friends that stopped by to occupy the early days. However, just like anything else, people move on to their day-to-day lives, and many college students return home.
At the time of my injury, the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) had a presence in the local rehab facility that allowed me to sign up for services with the help of a disability resource counselor at Scottsdale Community College. Ironically, her son was a Scottsdale police officer at the time, and he was the first officer at the scene of my accident. After learning of the irony, I jokingly asked her if his first words upon seeing her after my accident were, "Mother, you have a new student."