Shane: It was really scary. I didn't really know what to think at the time.
I love football and I still do. It was just the atmosphere I guess, and just being around all my friends and us doing what we loved most. From when I was younger, I was always watching the Brown's games. My older brother played, so I kinda just wanted to take after him.
It was a Saturday morning, I was playing a JV football game and we ran. I caught a pass, turned up field and saw a guy from St. Mary's hit me. It was a solid hit, it was nothing dirty or anything and then that's when I went down and a couple of my buddies tried to help me back up and I just told them, "I can't move my legs, I can't get up."
Shane’s mom: I saw his arms flailing and his legs were not moving, they stayed in one position the whole time. So I'm starting to panic and people are going down there and I'm asking Jeff, "Why aren't his legs moving?"
Shane: They took me to Mercer Health via ambulance, they did a MRI and then they ran a couple of other tests and that's basically it from Coldwater.
Dr. Walusimbi: So, we do a systematic evaluation, which includes a physical exam and then the imaging, CT scans, to make sure there are no other injuries. So during the emergency examination, kept him immobilized and then do the imaging to further localize the actual area of injury.
Dr. Letarte: He had dislocated his spine above T4. From the spine below T4 and that slipped forward. And the process of slipping forward was pinching his spinal cord. He was young, he was stable, he had gotten a good trauma survey. That's why you have trauma systems, that's why you have trauma teams. They could assure me that he was stable and so I could take him quickly to the operating room and decompress him.
We took the bones off the back of the spinal cord to take the pressure off the spinal cord. And then I stabilized him by putting screws from T3 down to T7, spanning the T4/5 area where he was dislocated.
Shane’s dad: Tara would stay, you know, a couple nights in a row at least. And then, I would come down for a night to take her place so she could go home and take care of stuff at around the house. And then she'd come back down for a couple more days again and we just kinda rotated around when she was there.
Shane: I kinda just took that as motivation and just kinda, I don't want to be in this chair for the rest my life. So, I wanted to push myself and get back up on my feet as fast as I can.
Dr. Walusimbi: Initially, rehab, just to learn to live with the injury.
Rehab PTA: I always tell patients, whether they're here for a spinal cord injury, brain injury, whatever, is part of the job is physical. There's that physical component of needing to get better, but there's also the emotional struggle of dealing with the new normal.
One thing I let him know, that where he's headed, that point, was not the end all. That it wasn't always going to be as bad as it is right now. That the future will tell us how far we get with that injury, but for now we can help him so he can be able to get himself in and out of bed, in and out of a wheelchair, maybe we can try standing. Anything that we can do, we're going to do.
Shane’s mom: Everybody's just done so much. His accident happened on a Saturday of Labor Day weekend and by that Monday night they had reached all of the MAC schools in the area. So they formed a human shield with the number nine on the inside, which is Shane's number.
The football team, the boosters, always have a fundraiser every year that benefit the boosters and they donated that money to us.
Shane’s dad: We had to move walls to make the bathroom bigger, put new doors in for wider doors, make a ramp to get into the house and my buddy was over about two days after it happened looking to see what he had to do.
Shane: Everybody there at Miami Valley was great, the therapists, the nurses, the doctors, they were all great.
Shane’s mom: Doctor Letarte did the surgery, he was very good.
Shane’s dad: He didn't sugarcoat anything and that's what you liked about him.
Shane’s mom: Yeah.
Shane’s dad: He just told you straight out, you know, what you can expect. And, that's what I like to hear.
Shane’s mom: He's like, "Your son's gonna do some big things, whether he walks or not. He's going to do something with this." And I was like, "I agree 100%."
Dr. Letarte: You need to be honest, you need to look at the challenges in your life or you'll never confront them. But you need to do it in a way that doesn't strip hope away. And so I tell people, I love being proved wrong.
Dr. Walusimbi: Some days are more difficult than others and this was difficult. The way he reacted to the injury, knowing what had occurred, kind of helped all of us to have to settle down and feel better. Sometimes you get bad sleep, nightmares about this type of injury that we take care of. And that helps us, at least for me, to come back the following day.
Rehab PTA: And he did so great, he agreed to come back and be a peer mentor. We have someone around the same age, with similar injury, we have someone with an injury like that to come in and give firsthand information from what they learned, how rough the process is and to also let that person know, hey, it can get better.
Shane: There's definitely been a huge amounts of improvement. At when I left the hospital, I had no movement at all in my legs or anything and by now, it's up to I've been at therapy with a walker and then to therapy assistance, so, really progressing.
Shane’s dad: His main thing is he's got his head and he's got his hands and arms, so he can do pretty much anything he wants.
Shane’s mom: Just gotta do it a little bit differently.
