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00:17:38It was a
00:19:08because I knew how active he was, you know.
00:19:12She done jumped in her car and went to the accident.
00:19:15She went to the accident.
00:19:17She called me, I can't remember if I was at work
00:19:19or at home, but she went down and she just called me.
00:19:23She was crying and I'm like,
00:19:25girl, what's wrong with you?
00:19:26And she's like, Ma, Jason done had a rig.
00:19:29He done had a rig.
00:19:30He done had a real bad rig.
00:19:31He done had a real bad rig.
00:19:33She said, I said, calm down, just calm down.
00:19:37And it took her a minute to calm down,
00:19:39but she eventually calmed down and got herself together.
00:19:44It hurt her the real bad because she didn't know
00:19:47if he was alive or dead.
00:19:50I actually made it to the scene.
00:19:53I was out in my truck and I was actually at the truck stop
00:19:56when they called me and I was dropping my trailer
00:19:59and they called me and told me that he had an accident.
00:20:02And I didn't even get in my car,
00:20:04I just drove my whole 18 wheeler to the accident site.
00:20:08And I actually got to see them pull him out the car
00:20:10and talk to him before he got in the ambulance.
00:20:13And still the one told me that, you know,
00:20:15he had hurt his neck.
00:20:17So I'm saying, I'm like, you okay?
00:20:18He was like, yeah, I got it there and I'm like, okay.
00:20:20But I noticed he never moved anything with his mouth.
00:20:23You know, he told me, I'm okay.
00:20:25And I seen, you know, like he had a scar on his head
00:20:27and he was bleeding.
00:20:28A tree, that's why I got the scrape on my head
00:20:31from the switch.
00:20:32But a tree was in my driver's seat right here,
00:20:37like coming through the windshield
00:20:39because it was flipped over.
00:20:41So the tree was coming from right here and it was coming.
00:20:45It took off the top of my headrest on my seat,
00:20:49but I was through over into the passenger floorboard.
00:20:52That's why my shoulder and stuff,
00:20:54I still have paralysis on this side
00:20:56because this entire side was in glass.
00:20:59He was okay, yeah, he just got a,
00:21:00I think he had sprung his arm or something like that.
00:21:03I'm not pretty sure.
00:21:04And I asked the paramedics and I said,
00:21:07uh, just don't stop him at all.
00:21:08Just go to Addysburg.
00:21:10You know, they got better doctors to me.
00:21:13And, uh, so they left and went on to Addysburg.
00:21:16We was driving like a high speed to try to get there.
00:21:19And I told, I said, just slow down.
00:21:21I said, just take your time.
00:21:23And, you know, at this time I'm still just trying to gather
00:21:27all this information.
00:21:28It was just such a big shock to me.
00:21:31So once we, we met, kind of got halfway,
00:21:35they called us and said, hey, first responders got them out.
00:21:37The ambulance got them.
00:21:38They're heading to Addysburg.
00:21:41I mean, that's why they talk about the golden hour and trauma.
00:21:43The quicker you can get to us,
00:21:44the more likely we can have an impact on what happens to you.
00:21:47And even in a combat zone, you can have a 98% survival rate
00:21:50for severe injuries if people can get to you within that hour.
00:21:53But unfortunately, despite, uh,
00:21:55everything we try to do in a state like Mississippi,
00:21:57as rural as it is, um, with limited resources
00:22:01in terms of helicopters and ambulances,
00:22:02sometimes people take longer to get to us.
00:22:04Sometimes bad accidents,
00:22:05people take longer to get extricated locally.
00:22:08Sometimes people have an accident,
00:22:08nobody knows they've had an accident.
00:22:10They may sit in the car for hours
00:22:11before they, somebody finds them.
00:22:13I hung around my grandma all the time.
00:22:15So she would tell me, say,
00:22:17you always look to the hills.
00:22:20That's where your help come from.
00:22:22And which is God, you look to the hills.
00:22:24And at that time, he had my full attention.
00:22:28He had my full attention.
00:22:31And I talked to him the whole way there.
00:22:34I met Jason on October 3rd of 2019.
00:22:37I was on call that day here at the hospital,
00:22:40um, and, uh, got a phone call from a trauma surgeon on a call.
00:22:44I was at home at the time.
00:22:45And, you know, there was an accident coming in.
00:22:47And so I came into the hospital.
00:22:49It was probably 7.30, 8 o'clock at night
00:22:51when I first met Jason.
00:22:53And Jason had been in a rollover accident
00:22:55where, um, he was found in the passenger seat
00:22:59in the front.
00:23:00And when the first responders got to them,
00:23:03he was not moving anything.
00:23:05So they put a collar on him
00:23:06and extricated him from the vehicle
00:23:08and they brought him here.
00:23:09Everything else was history.
00:23:10And I woke up in the hospital.
00:23:12And he was awake and talking to me.
00:23:14He had a laceration on his head from the accident.
00:23:16But his brain was fine, no injury.
00:23:18So he was able to talk to us.
00:23:19But the only thing he had was a little bit of movement
00:23:22in his left arm.
00:23:23He couldn't move either of his legs
00:23:24and he couldn't move his right arm at all.
00:23:25You know, we have protocols for taking care of patients like that.
00:23:28The trauma doctors are involved.
00:23:29They consult the appropriate people they need,
00:23:31whether an orthopedist or a neurosurgeon,
00:23:33to take care of the problems.
00:23:34People instantly get sent over to radiology
00:23:37and get all the pictures that they need
00:23:38for us to understand what's going on.
00:23:40And as soon as we got Jason's pictures back,
00:23:43we realized that he'd broken his neck
00:23:44between the fourth and the fifth vertebra
00:23:47and had damaged the spinal cord
00:23:49because the neck was displaced at those levels.
00:23:51And the spinal cord had been pinched or squeezed
00:23:53in the accident and injured.
00:23:54And that's why he was not able to move anything.
00:23:56This picture here shows a side view of Jason's neck.
00:24:00And the white blocks you see are the vertebra in the neck
00:24:04stacked on top of each other.
00:24:05And you can see here, that's the second vertebra,
00:24:08the third and the fourth.
00:24:08And you can see how the fourth vertebra is stepped out
00:24:12and in front of the fifth where they should be lined up
00:24:15like the rest of them here.
00:24:17And that's due to, and you can see here,
00:24:19this picture here shows you a slice right through that area.
00:24:22And the pieces of bone on the side
00:24:24that help hold all this together were fractured.
00:24:28And you can see the pieces of them here.
00:24:29And so when the accident occurred,
00:24:31basically the energy probably of hitting the windscreen
00:24:36actually broke the bones along the side here,
00:24:38which allowed his neck to slip forward.
00:24:40And so after obtaining these pictures,
00:24:42we took him to the MRI scanner to get this picture
00:24:45so we could actually see the spinal cord.
00:24:47CT scan is like a fancy x-ray.
00:24:49So all you really see is the bones
00:24:50for the most part in this picture.
00:24:51But this picture shows us the spinal cord
00:24:53and the other soft tissues.
00:24:55So the same kind of picture looking at
00:24:58adjacent from his side.
00:24:59You see the brain in the top of the picture
00:25:01and this gray tube running down,
00:25:04this gray stripe running down here in the middle
00:25:06between these white areas, that's the spinal cord.
00:25:09You can see four and five which are jumped off
00:25:10on each other and you can see where the spinal cord
00:25:12is now being pinched because the canal has been narrowed.
00:25:15And it's got all this white signal inside the spinal cord
00:25:18which shows us the spinal cord was injured
00:25:20when that occurred when it was compressed.
00:25:21When I got to the hospital and I met with Kiana,
00:25:26she like she said, she wasn't feeling good
00:25:29because it was kind of hurting her real bad.
00:25:31You know, they separated us from the people.
00:25:34We made it all the way to Hattiesburg to Forest General.
00:25:38Doctor came in and kind of prepped us, you know,
00:25:41hey we need y'all to sit in this room and kind of,
00:25:44kind of wait till we kind of get it cleaned up and everything
00:25:46and you can come back.
00:25:47Obviously his parents were, you know, concerned
00:25:49about what was going to happen.
00:25:51I mean, it's an emotional interaction
00:25:53when you're talking to parents about one of their children
00:25:56and telling them that, you know, they may have suffered
00:25:58an injury to the spinal cord that's not allowed them
00:26:01to walk again.
00:26:01With us getting this news, it was like an explosion.
00:26:04You know, it's just, we just didn't expect
00:26:08for this to happen and it happened.
00:26:09And when they told us that he had hurt his neck,
00:26:12you know, it took a lot out of him
00:26:14because I know how hard he worked, you know.
00:26:16He worked every day to accomplish his goal
00:26:19and for that to be taken from him, yeah, it's a thick second.
00:26:23It's a lot to endure, you know.
00:26:24You have to tell that to people before you take someone
00:26:26to the operating room so everyone is kind of on the same page
00:26:28and understands what's, you know, what's going to happen.
00:26:31And you walk a fine line between trying to be hopeful and,
00:26:34you know, but also, you know, giving them enough information
00:26:38about the reality of the situation so that they're prepared
00:26:41if people don't get better after you take them to the operating room
00:26:44for something like this.
00:26:45I didn't know until we got to the hospital.
00:26:48Like, I thought my mom, man, was joking at first
00:26:52when we was in the hospital.
00:26:53It was like, well, you're paralyzed.
00:26:54And then when the doctor came and told me, I was like, oh, wow.
00:26:58The doctor came in and told us that he's broke his neck.
00:27:04And, you know, we're trying to do all we can do,
00:27:07but he's got to have emergency surgery.
00:27:10So at that time, we just basically say, hey, save him.
00:27:14Do whatever you got to do to save him.
00:27:16Just like I talk to families and I tell them the worst thing
00:27:19that can happen and the best thing that can happen,
00:27:21I go into the operating room with a mindset of we're going to do
00:27:24everything we can to try to make the best thing we can happen.
00:27:26And one of the first things I do in positioning the patient
00:27:28is I try to reduce the fracture manually.
00:27:31So under a live fluoroscope image of the spine,
00:27:35I manipulate the neck and try to,
00:27:37while we're still monitoring the nervous system,
00:27:39realign the structures to take the pressure off there
00:27:40immediately if I can and get them back into a normal alignment.
00:27:43And once we've done that, we then mark where
00:27:47we're going to make the incision.
00:27:48And we did Jason's operation through an incision,
00:27:51probably not much bigger than that.
00:27:52And once you get through the skin,
00:27:54most of the structures of the neck run up and down.
00:27:56It's a kind of a vertical structure.
00:27:58And so you can get down to the front spine fairly easily
00:28:00without cutting anything else.
00:28:01And then under the microscope,
00:28:03I basically take out the entire disc from front to back.
00:28:06And once I get to the back of the disc space,
00:28:08we remove any disc material that's pushing on the spinal cord.
00:28:12We take down a bone that's been pushed back in the spinal canal.
00:28:15And then we use little spacers to reconstruct the appropriate height
00:28:18between the vertebral bodies and to finally line it back up.
00:28:21So I have other instruments in the operating room I can use to do the final realignment of the spine.
00:28:27And then we finish the operation by putting a plate on the front of the spine and screws
00:28:31to hold that anatomic alignment because the bones are still broken in the back.
00:28:35And if you don't put something to hold it in place while it heals,
00:28:38it could become dislodged or dislocated again.
00:28:41And then you just close the skin up.
00:28:42And here's a picture from, you know, after the operation,
00:28:45which shows a side view that, again, you can see the spines line back up again.
00:28:48There's a plate and the screws that are, you know, that are holding the spine together.
00:28:52It's a big team effort.
00:28:53Often in the operating room, depending on what kind of case I'm doing,
00:28:55I might have anywhere from five to ten people in the operating room helping me
00:28:59between anesthesiologists and nursing staff, techs,
00:29:02and the people who support the other things that we do in there,
00:29:04like the monitoring of the nervous system or putting in plates and screws and rods
00:29:08to stabilize people's spines.
00:29:09And then he went to the ICU afterwards because he was still very sick from the accident in general.
00:29:15And typically after these kind of injuries, we like to keep people's blood pressures elevated
00:29:18to optimize the blood flow to the spinal cord
00:29:20and try to give them the best chance possible of recovering from an injury like this.
00:29:24They told me, they was like, well, you're paralyzed from the neck down.
00:29:28Like, there's no, we can't tell you when you're going to get better.
00:29:32They was basically giving me the possibilities of my body, like limiting my body.
00:29:38Like, okay, you may be able to do this, you may be able to do that.
00:29:41Or this is going to take some time to do this and do that.
00:29:45They called all the doctors to my room.
00:29:47I told them, I said, look, I don't want to be seen.
00:29:49I don't want to take any medicine.
00:29:50Can you move my mom to another room?
00:29:53I don't really want to, I don't want to be around anybody.
00:29:56I just want to be by myself.
00:29:57Emotions was, my whole entire life was, you know, I feel like it crashed down on me.
00:30:04And at that moment right there, man, you know, when they like, um,
00:30:08the devil really came to me.
00:30:11He really came to me, he was like, you know, that's it, it's over with.
00:30:14I told my mom, I said, mom, if I can't play sports, I don't want to be here.
00:30:19So just tell them to pull the cord on me.
00:30:27And immediately after the operation,
00:30:29Jason wasn't really any better than he was going into the operating room.
00:30:32My body was like a hard, heavy rock.
00:30:35They told him, say, he might be on a feeding tube.
00:30:37Simple movement in his left arm, but still wasn't moving his right arm
00:30:40or either of his legs.
00:30:42With the break that he had affected his breathing,
00:30:45it affected his speech and everything,
00:30:48because he had to take speech and all that.
00:30:50When he told me what had happened, I was just,
00:30:55the baby's only 17, you know, 16, 17.
00:30:58And then when they told me he wasn't going to walk anymore,
00:31:01I said, oh, man.
00:31:03I'll come from practice and then mama told me.
00:31:04Yeah.
00:31:05That you got in the ring and it kind of bothered me
00:31:06because I was like, like, is he straight?
00:31:08He good? I just, that's why I was calling y'all calling.
00:31:11Athletics are the heartbeat of this town.
00:31:13Because of him being so athletic,
00:31:15like, I couldn't wrap my mind around him not being able to walk in.
00:31:19And after he had the accident and everything, she made signs
00:31:25and made sure that the football team had, you know, his number,
00:31:30and they had posters all around here with him and everything.
00:31:35He's 17, you know, quadriplegic.
00:31:38I don't know how he's going to, you know, live like that, live with that.
00:31:43A couple days in ICU and in a regular hospital.
00:31:46And then I went to Jackson Methodist Rehab October the 17th.
00:31:53Once people are stable and able to be out of the acute care hospital,
00:31:56they're no longer at risk of dying or having further complications.
00:31:59We sent them to rehab.
00:32:00Once we left Forest General, we went over to UMC in Jackson.
00:32:04He lost all his muscle memory.
00:32:07I mean, he was so skinny, like it disappeared overnight.
00:32:10Never seen anything like it.
00:32:12So once he was in the facility, they would come get him.
00:32:14They would, you know, do everything they could for him.
00:32:18I don't know if they airlifted him or what to Jackson.
00:32:22They all, a group of them, I think, went all up there to see him.
00:32:25My husband, when he found out about Jason, it just, you know,
00:32:30brought back memories for him personally.
00:32:31My dad was a paraplegic too, so he also had that, the paraplegic situation
00:32:39after a bad car accident as well.
00:32:42And so I believe that touched him and it brought back some memories of how,
00:32:47you know, it may have been difficult for the family to buy food and,
00:32:52you know, hotel rooms and be able to pay for medical expenses and all that.
00:32:57And he remembered how that was for him.
00:33:00Even though we had, you know, health insurance and everything and everything
00:33:04was being taken care of, the parents, they wouldn't let them stay, you know,
00:33:09both overnight, keep on staying.
00:33:11And rehabilitation is months, months and months.
00:33:16And when my husband found out that, you know, hey, we got to start coming home,
00:33:20he did a fundraiser for them, you know, to raise funds to give to the mother,
00:33:25to give to Jason's mother and the dad, Toby, so they could stay at the hotel,
00:33:30you know, longer, be with their child.
00:33:33I remember my dad getting it together as far as, you know, the program,
00:33:39creating fundraisers and raising money within the community to help him and his family
00:33:44for those medical expenses and food and hotel and things like that.
00:33:49My husband was amazing.
00:33:52He was.
00:33:53Any child that came through his league, he treated them like they were his own.
00:33:58He gave just as much to the community and to every child that came through his program and even after.
00:34:04They had a benefit for him and we wanted him to know that we cared.
00:34:09And we, we went to the benefit, but you know what he told me, he did.
00:34:14My husband told him and he said, Mr. Breland, I'm going to play.
00:34:18I'm going to play basketball again.
00:34:20He said, you play basketball again.
00:34:21I'm putting you a new goal out, out the side of everyone.
00:34:25We are a powerful community.
00:34:26We are.
00:34:27We are a really powerful community.
00:34:29When, when it's necessary, we do gather together.
00:34:32We will.
00:34:33The community, it just seems like it all just pulled together.
00:34:38So, just having that support system in itself is so vital in, in mental health because,
00:34:45like I said, I work with a lot of individuals who don't have that support system.
00:34:49And that support system is very important in somebody's progress or, or lack thereof in
00:34:55their recovery.
00:34:56You're disabled, whatever the case may be, you know, you feel like you're forgotten
00:35:00in the world to where the world forgets you and stuff.
00:35:03I didn't, I was not forgotten.
00:35:04They made sure I was not forgotten.
00:35:06And I'll never forget them for that.
00:35:08That'll be something that'll live for me until the day that I pass away.
00:35:11When he was first released from the hospital, they were staying, I think like in a hotel.
00:35:17And me and her went every day to check on him to see that he need anything, that his mom
00:35:23need anything.
00:35:25But once he got home, that's when the work really set in and I don't, you know, I don't
00:35:30have that extra hand no more.
00:35:31In those times like that, you don't really get genuine people there to come and help in
00:35:37a way that they did, especially her and her mom.
00:35:39If I was at work, my daughter would go by there and she would relieve the mom and tell her
00:35:44to go do what she needed to do, anything if she needed to go shopping, go home, get anything
00:35:49to come back or whatever.
00:35:51And she just pretty much was there for them.
00:35:54After when I came home, you know, her mom was the first people there to actually, you know,
00:35:59take care of it.
00:36:00He came home, she was there, she went to Jones College, every day she would call me when
00:36:08she got out, she said, I'm going to see Jason, I'm going to see Jason, I'm going to check
00:36:11on Jason.
00:36:12She became like, I'd say like, more like a family member.
00:36:19They loved it, Asia, she was like the other daughter that she called his mom, mom, his
00:36:25dad, dad, and his sister, sister.
00:36:28They all loved it.
00:36:31They knew about what time every day she come by the house, because it was like a set time
00:36:36that she come.
00:36:37She would always be right there to tell me, you know, this ain't the end, you know, you
00:36:44got a lot more to live for.
00:36:45I knew it was something because she wouldn't have been going to see him every day like,
00:36:52you know, she was and making sure he was doing what he's supposed to do and making sure
00:36:59he tried to get up.
00:37:00She was kind of like a motivation person to him also.
00:37:04I was growing feelings in that way too, so far as the liking and stuff like that.
00:37:08His mom said, I wish you would date her or whatever, but it didn't happen at the time.
00:37:16I didn't let her know that.
00:37:17So far as emotion-wise, I kind of keep that to myself, no matter if it was a relationship
00:37:23or whatever.
00:37:23But later on in life, he told me that he was going to, I guess, ask to be her boyfriend
00:37:30or whatever, and he didn't know how she was going to take it or whatever.
00:37:32I kind of knew, but I just wouldn't accept it, like, you know, that she liked me or whatever
00:37:37the case may be.
00:37:37I thought she was, like, playing.
00:37:39I said, you know her.
00:37:40I said, she was just probably going to laugh it off and play, talking about short legs,
00:37:43little legs.
00:37:44Go on on.
00:37:53December the 9th, 2021, four day that morning, she was sick.
00:38:00We was actually supposed to have been going to a doctor's appointment.
00:38:04Well, I was taking her to a doctor's appointment, and she wasn't feeling good.
00:38:07And she was like, Mom finna go take a shower.
00:38:12So, she was in there taking a shower, and I heard her make a funny sound.
00:38:20And when I got up and went to the bathroom, she was in the tube.
00:38:27She had to cut the water off at the shop, and she was just laying there.
00:38:35And I finally got my sister-in-law, which she was a nurse, and finally got an ambulance.
00:38:44And we had to wait on one to come from law because the ones they had here was already occupied
00:38:51somewhere.
00:38:54And I guess about 3 o'clock or whatever that morning at the hospital, they pronounced it.
00:39:03So, we had an autopsy dead and everything.
00:39:08And a lot of people don't know, because I don't tell too many posts, but they said she had a
00:39:14blood clot.
00:39:17And she was only 19.
00:39:19And she was my only shot.
00:39:23When I got the news that she had passed away, I was kind of choked up.
00:39:28He was really hurt.
00:39:30It took him a minute afterwards.
00:39:33He couldn't come to the house.
00:39:36He couldn't.
00:39:36He told me he got to the wait.
00:39:41And he just couldn't make himself come in.
00:39:44My mom sat down and we talked a couple times after she had passed.
00:39:48My mom was telling me, you know, she, at that time I was in a relationship with somebody else.
00:39:51But my mom was telling me, you know, Aja always liked you and, you know, she always used to talk
00:39:58about you and stuff like that.
00:39:59I think last year, maybe, was probably the first time he's been to the house since she passed.
00:40:06That's supposed to not happen like that, but everybody's born to, you know, pass away.
00:40:12So, me understanding and almost losing my life at one point, you know, we'll meet again.
00:40:24With a spinal cord injury, you don't, it's not like a broken leg or a broken arm where a doctor
00:40:30tells you you got three months or you got six months.
00:40:32Spinal cord injury is one of the most unpredictable injuries on earth.
00:40:37When I first came home, I didn't have a power, I had a power chair, but it wasn't mine.
00:40:42They ordered a $50,000 power chair, custom, all black, everything, what I want.
00:40:48To this day, I've never sat in that chair.
00:40:52It still has a wrap on it.
00:40:54I took an oath to myself.
00:40:56My mom was like, man, why you just want to sit in the chair and just, you know, ride around
00:41:00it?
00:41:00And I said, mom, if I sit in that chair, I'd never give back up.
00:41:03The fact that he was able to not go to substances or not indulging in self-harm and behaviors and
00:41:12suicidal ideations, that just shows that, A, he either had a good support system and he was able to talk
00:41:23to himself and get himself on the right path of where he knew he could go.
00:41:28I didn't have bad thoughts. I was being very strategic of how I can come out of this.
00:41:34Laying on our back is not an option. We got work to do. I want you to apply the same
00:41:39pressure that you put into your sports. I want you to work.
00:41:44When you play sports and stuff like that, you work out for sports. I worked out for life in general.
00:41:50So, I mean, they handle stuff like this.
00:41:55At first, with me being a quad, I started with scratching. I got my cousin and we were scratching. I
00:42:04told him, I said, I want to try something.
00:42:07And as he was pushing my leg in, I said, don't pull it out. I closed my eyes. I can
00:42:14see myself pulling my leg out so far as like pushing.
00:42:18So, he'll push it in and I close my eyes and I think of me pushing my leg out, even
00:42:25though if it wasn't doing it, I was just thinking of just pushing it out.
00:42:28You pushing it in and I'm pushing it out. From where he broke and down, where he broke three and
00:42:34four, all that had to regain and try to reattract and come back together.
00:42:41As he was doing therapy, everything started to fire up that wasn't firing up at first.
00:42:46People who make up their mind they're going to get better, I think, can drive their recovery. And people who
00:42:56decide that they've been defeated from the outset are much less likely to get better.
00:43:00It worked. So, at that point, when I realized, okay, well, this is just a mind game. All I have
00:43:05to do is train my body and train my mind, start with the signal, push the signal past my injury
00:43:13point, and I'm good.
00:43:15You know, things kind of start retracting and kind of coming together. Those nerves start waking up to the point
00:43:23to where he could move a finger or, you know, to the point of him moving his whole hand.
00:43:28He began moving the leg on the left side a little bit, then he began moving the other leg and
00:43:35then the other arm starts to move.
00:43:37The place where we were staying, the bathroom is, the shower is upstairs. So, I was getting bed-bathed at
00:43:45that time, and my bathroom is outside of my door and to the left.
00:43:52I was like, well, I told my mom, I said, one day, I don't know what day it is, but
00:43:57I'm going to, like, walk upstairs, and I'm going to take a shower.
00:44:01Like, every day when they left the house, I used to just walk up one stair at a time.
00:44:06Not all the way up, but just, like, one step up, then step back, and one step up, step back.
00:44:11Like, I'm training, I'm training my body and my mind to take those steps to get to the top.
00:44:17In all honesty, in my profession, I've seen those type of situations create a monster and create negativity.
00:44:29Yet, Jason, he turned that into positivity.
00:44:32And although a lot of people who do what I do would claim that it's mostly physical or physiological and
00:44:37that, you know, what's going to happen is kind of set in stone,
00:44:39I don't believe that's true. I mean, I think there's people in the middle somewhere who can make a, have
00:44:45a big impact on their own recovery
00:44:46if they believe that they can, they can do that.
00:44:48It was one Sunday, I was feeling real energetic, and I had kind of trained myself and my body to
00:44:55go up the stairs.
00:44:56That's my first time ever picking my feet up to walk upstairs. And, uh, my mom, then when she was
00:45:00asleep, it was on a Sunday morning,
00:45:01and I walked upstairs, and I took a shower, and, uh, she came in there, she was like...
00:45:06So it was to the point where he bathed, he dried himself off, he was self-made.
00:45:12It's amazing, man. He kept working.
00:45:15Oh, my dad rooted for him.
00:45:17Jason had started posting YouTube videos of his, of his treatment and his, uh, physical therapy and stuff,
00:45:22but he was like, look at him, look at him. He'd say, baby, look at this, look at him go.
00:45:27He was just so proud of him.
00:45:28He also saw the potential of him overcoming that and coming out even stronger than before.
00:45:34And he slowly started getting better.
00:45:36He was learning from how to walk again, how to stand up again.
00:45:40I was so related when I saw him back able to walk.
00:45:45And the doctor was like, this ain't normal.
00:45:48He poured everything into rehab and, step by step, started to beat the odds.
00:45:53Cooper took the diagnosis as a challenge.
00:45:56Doctors call him a rare case, having regained the ability to walk.
00:46:00Today, Jason walks with the help of crutches, works out daily, and helps others do the same as a personal
00:46:06trainer.
00:46:07Certainly there's a lot that we don't understand about how the nervous system is injured and how it recovers.
00:46:13How to feed myself, use a phone, kind of drive myself.
00:46:18And once I seen he was able to do that, I said, it's down here from here. We got this.
00:46:23I've seen things that I would not have predicted could happen, happen, that I can't explain.
00:46:28They told me it got to the point to where they was like, you can go. He's doing it. He's
00:46:34doing it.
00:46:34What Jason does, you know, getting up every day and going to the gym and making sure that every muscle
00:46:39that's still getting an appropriate signal from the central nervous system in the brain is at peak performance, is maximized
00:46:46in terms of its strength.
00:46:46And by reinforcing those neurological pathways that talk to the muscles from the brain, you know, that's got to play
00:46:53a role in why he's done as well as he's doing.
00:46:55The doctor came in and told me, said, had it been a 30, 40-year-old person, they wouldn't survive
00:47:03it.
00:47:04With him being young, his body was so strong because he worked out every day.
00:47:10When I tell patients who come back to my office who aren't able to walk, that, you know, I want
00:47:14them to continue to do everything they can to keep their muscles as healthy as possible and to be as
00:47:17healthy as possible.
00:47:18Because at some point, I think people who are alive and young and living with these kinds of problems in
00:47:24their lifetime may, you know, may be able to benefit from things like Neuralink and similar projects going on all
00:47:30over the country right now.
00:47:31To take the mind-brain interface and be able to use that information to reprogram movement, whether it's with external
00:47:40exoskeleton kind of devices that would move their arms and legs or directly routing signals back to muscles that are
00:47:46still viable and usable.
00:47:48There's nobody telling me to go to the gym. I want to do this because I want to work hard.
00:47:52It could be sports, it could be journaling, it could be running, it could be building things, it could be
00:47:59anything, anything that you use to cope that's positive.
00:48:05To be handicapped, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't even look at it as the physical ability part. I think of
00:48:14it as mentality. Everything starts with your mentality.
00:48:16You got to get through the door first to get into the gym. And a lot of people don't even
00:48:20want to go to their door.
00:48:21The mental fitness.
00:48:24I personally believe that the perspective we take on what happens to us can make a big difference in how
00:48:30we recover and how we ultimately do when we've injured the nervous system or other parts of our body.
00:48:36I mean, bro, I can do any and everything that you can do, really.
00:48:40I wanted him to keep the same mindset of nothing is wrong with you.
00:48:44So you think about, okay, I'm handicapped, I'm this, I'm that, you're going to be that. I don't think like
00:48:50that.
00:48:50I want you to use your mind and let your mind direct you. There's nothing wrong with you.
00:48:56And over the course of a year and a half or two years afterwards, I mean, Jason ultimately came, you
00:49:00know, walking back into the office.
00:49:01But when I saw him walking, man, that was just, and I said, if anybody can do it, he could.
00:49:09You know, give me a second. It's a little, it's a little emotional when you think about this.
00:49:15But there is no greater reward for what we do than seeing something like what happened to Jason happen.
00:49:23And that's, that's ultimately why we, why I did this.
00:49:25I mean, everyone has their own motivations.
00:49:27And certainly what I do affords me a lot of benefits in life and a lot of luxuries in life
00:49:33that other people don't have.
00:49:34And certainly, you know, I'm sure as a young man deciding what he was going to do with his life,
00:49:40those things are things you should think about.
00:49:41But the things that are the most valuable and most rewarding are things like this.
00:49:46I mean, at this point, Jason doesn't really need me any longer.
00:49:48I mean, he's, you know, he's as much better as he can be.
00:49:51And as surgeons, he's not going to need any more surgery from me.
00:49:54I may continue to check in with him on an annual basis just to kind of, so for myself, really,
00:49:58to see just what he achieved in his life because he's come so far already.
00:50:02So how have you been since February when I saw you last?
00:50:05Doing a lot of working out.
00:50:07A lot of working out. I can see your muscles are certainly bigger than mine. Straighten the leg out for
00:50:10me.
00:50:11You know, interestingly, you still have some spasticity there.
00:50:14Can you pull that toe up towards the ceiling at all?
00:50:17You know, the spasticity is probably one of the reasons why you can, you know, you have enough toe in
00:50:22those legs that allows you, it's almost like you're winding a spring up.
00:50:26You know, and you're letting it unwind and you're harnessing that energy.
00:50:30So the spasticity keeps your muscles tight.
00:50:31So when you squat down with all that weight, that weight is pushing you down.
00:50:34But your muscles, because they're tighter than they were before and they're tighter than mine because of a little bit
00:50:39of the problem with your brain inhibiting your reflex arcs.
00:50:43Because that's what happens.
00:50:44I mean, your brain basically tells your leg for the muscles to be looser.
00:50:49And when the brain can't get that signal down, the muscles are tighter.
00:50:52So you're like a wound up coil.
00:50:55And when you let that weight push you down, that 400 pounds or that 350 pounds push you down,
00:50:58you're storing a lot of energy in those muscles because you're stretching them and they want to rebound.
00:51:04And so that allows you to, you know, really when you activate the muscles, then you get this, you're harnessing
00:51:09that extra energy that you stored in them by forcing them down.
00:51:12Just like taking a spring and compressing it and then letting it go.
00:51:15So that's one of the, that may be one of the reasons why you can lift, you can squat so
00:51:18much with those legs.
00:51:19It's amazing. I mean, you know, you've done really, really well.
00:51:22You're the, you're the exception, not the rule in your recovery.
00:51:26And part of that was you.
00:51:28Part of that was me.
00:51:30Part of that was what happened to your spinal cord at the time all this happened.
00:51:33And, and part of that is, you know, you know, what, what the good Lord and the universe had in
00:51:38store for you or hadn't had in their plans for you.
00:51:40I mean, so there's lots of things that contributed to that, but there's no question that at the end of
00:51:43the day, your recovery is not what we typically see.
00:51:47There's so much we don't understand. I mean, the, like a lot of the universe is still, you know, you
00:51:53know, a black hole to us or, you know, a black box.
00:51:56The nervous system is the same way. There's really so much we don't understand.
00:51:59We're learning every day. I mean, people are mapping the entire human brain and trying to map every connection and
00:52:04help us to understand it.
00:52:05We know so much more about the proteins that make it up and how they encourage regeneration or, or discourage
00:52:11it depending on where in the brain it is.
00:52:13But there's still so much, so much we need to learn.
00:52:16Even though, you know, his dreams may have been shattered as far as, um, the athletic part of it, but
00:52:23all in all, something even greater came.
00:52:26Hey.
00:52:28Papa.
00:52:29You gonna smile for the camera?
00:52:32You gonna smile for the camera?
00:52:33They got your grandma.
00:52:35Hey!
00:52:35My papa, you know, I don't know I gotta look at the phone.
00:52:39Hey, Granny, Mimi.
00:52:41Get the camera on.
00:52:43Say hi.
00:52:44Recoup Foundation.
00:52:48What you doing out here, boy?
00:52:50What you doing out here?
00:52:50I'm coaching, man.
00:52:51How you been, bro?
00:52:52I'm coaching.
00:52:52Good.
00:52:53What?
00:52:58I ain't gonna lie, it was a hard competition when we played, bro.
00:53:01Uh, now?
00:53:02I don't know.
00:53:03Big Tyrone wasn't gonna poke me with safety pins.
00:53:07I remember 9th grade.
00:53:089th grade?
00:53:09Yeah, 9th grade, wow.
00:53:11We by ourselves on that one.
00:53:12No.
00:53:1210th grade.
00:53:13Ooh.
00:53:14I just got done talking about 10th grade.
00:53:16They were like, what's a funny moment at Law High School?
00:53:18Yeah.
00:53:18You know I had to say school better.
00:53:20Right now we're at my old Peewee football fair right now where it all started.
00:53:24I'm about to give a donation, $1,500 to Laura Seahawks to be able to fund their youth
00:53:30program.
00:53:31So it means a lot for me to be able to give back and do for them.
00:53:33Didn't nobody do it when I was young, so I'm using my platform and my own learning
00:53:38to try to help you out.
00:53:39You know, it ain't really just about me at the end of the day.
00:53:42And, um, just kind of, this whole documentary that kind of helped explore Laura and show
00:53:47the world to Laura.
00:53:49You're welcome.
00:53:49Store that down here.
00:53:51Pleasure like y'all, you know.
00:53:52Yeah.
00:53:54Don't be scared just because y'all are from Law, man.
00:53:56I mean, the world is way bigger than y'all.
00:53:59So, I mean, y'all can make y'all mark as well.
00:54:01You ain't gotta be from nowhere special.
00:54:03A lot of people, they get a platform like this and they don't really show what's in
00:54:07their hometown and stuff like that.
00:54:09So, it's bigger than me, brother.
00:54:10The reason that I do all this is for kids.
00:54:13Yeah.
00:54:13Ain't nobody do it for me.
00:54:15He's drawn more to helping people and for him to take off and to do that, I'm proud
00:54:21of him.
00:54:22My papa, he passed away last year, a week before my birthday.
00:54:27Um, my papa, he never really would admit to me, you're doing good.
00:54:34You're doing very good.
00:54:35Like my whole family is like that.
00:54:36I always tell them, if I'm doing great, do not tell me I'm doing great.
00:54:39Tell me I'm doing very bad or tell me I'm not progressing.
00:54:43And my, um, papa, he never would tell me ever in my life, you're doing good.
00:54:49He always telling me, you need to improve, you need to do this and do that.
00:54:52They kept me on my toes.
00:54:53Um, two weeks before my papa passed, he told me, he said, um, he finally admitted to me,
00:55:00yeah, you're doing good.
00:55:01You're doing very good.
00:55:02I see your body very strong and stuff.
00:55:06And that made me happy when he passed away to actually get him admitting to me that I'm
00:55:11doing something good.
00:55:12So that's what carries out my character now, knowing that those two, my guardian angels
00:55:18are watching me and knowing that, you know, I'm putting together something and using my
00:55:24platform to be able to help other people and kids, um, to be better people in a, in a world
00:55:30that just promotes just so evil and demonic things.
00:55:33So, you know, and that's why I said another reason why I was probably sent back here to
00:55:39be able to let people know that, you know, God is real and from the worst outcome, you
00:55:44still can have a little bit of hope and continue to be able to make it in life as long
00:55:48as you
00:55:48just believe in sacrificing what you think you know.
00:55:50I told Jason, I said, God did that.
00:55:53I said, God did that.
00:55:55You know, he gave you the mind frame that, hey, no matter what, it ain't about this person
00:56:01or that person or nothing, it's just about you and him.
00:56:04I still remember what you told me while we was practicing on basketball and all that.
00:56:07You told me, you said, if I don't make it, you gotta make it.
00:56:11Since now he's, uh, I told him a celebrity that, uh, with his fitness training stuff,
00:56:16I said, you gonna have to get mama in the gym.
00:56:18I said, we can't do too much, though.
00:56:20I said, mama can't do all what you be doing, but I get out there and try.
00:56:24But we have a good relationship.
00:56:26Like I said, he'll come by and visit.
00:56:28He, um, he FaceTimed me yesterday and had the grandbaby.
00:56:33I call him my grandbaby because I know I never have any, but his son on the screen,
00:56:39and he just looking at me like, who is she?
00:56:41Like he wanted to say, who is she, daddy?
00:56:43Who is she?
00:56:44But he looked at me, he kind of got the finger up and waved at me.
00:56:48All right.
00:56:52All right.
00:56:57All right.
00:57:18One of the things I learned from taking care of people like Jason and taking care of young
00:57:21soldiers on the battlefield in Iraq is that sometimes people who look like they have no
00:57:26chance of recovery can have very meaningful lives.
00:57:30To me, as a mother, it made our bond stronger.
00:57:33If you asked me when I operated on him and saw him for the first several days and weeks
00:57:38afterwards, he was with us in the hospital about two weeks before he went to rehab, you
00:57:42know, I was a little discouraged seeing, you know, not as much improvement as I hoped.
00:57:48Because if I can see you in a bad space and you come and you beat all the odds, there's
00:57:56hope for me.
00:57:57Because a lot of people who come in with an injury like this, if they're going to get as
00:58:00much better as Jason has, they show that signs very early on.
00:58:04To accomplish anything that I want to do.
00:58:06It's very easy to become very cynical about what we do sometimes when you see a lot of
00:58:10people injured who don't get better.
00:58:12But you always have to treat every patient who comes through that door like they have
00:58:15that capacity.
00:58:16There's no, I can't do, I want to do, it's I'm going to do.
00:58:21He gives me the same energy that I gave him.
00:58:24Push.
00:58:24I mean, I would use the word miraculous.
00:58:26I don't use that word very often.
00:58:27The miracle comes in lots of different forms.
00:58:29Don't stop.
00:58:30Let's go.
00:58:30It's the miracle of somebody like Jason who believes he's going to be better and makes
00:58:34that happen through, you know, force of his own sheer will.
00:58:38This whole entire documentary, my whole life, I've never thought about it.
00:58:43I've just done it.
00:58:44And when you realize what can come great from just doing it and not complaining.
00:58:49I think he's been like that since he was a little boy.
00:58:53He always had that mindset that I can do it.
00:58:56And he did it.
00:58:58Doctors who still believe patients can get better and do everything they can at the moment,
00:59:01they first interact with them to try to do everything they can to get them to the point
00:59:04that they're better.
00:59:05He has the mindset of an old man just to, hey, I know what I got to do and I'm
00:59:11going
00:59:11to do it.
00:59:11So if his dad taught him that, his dad taught him a good thing.
00:59:16I just thought it in him early, but now he can see that tomorrow ain't promised.
00:59:22You can lose everything today.
00:59:23The baddest thing that can happen to you if you have nothing is to do nothing.
00:59:30Never, never say no, you can't do anything.
00:59:34Hospital systems that are better at getting people taken care of and the science that we're
00:59:37doing, it's going to make Jason's story hopefully more common in the future and not less common.
00:59:43And I said, start letting your son teach him to get up and work hard every day.
00:59:48Don't allow nobody to give him nothing.
00:59:50You only get out of this world what you put in it.
00:59:52You know, miracles still happen.
00:59:54You hold on to the 1% and hope that someday it's 100%.
00:59:57So, keep working.
00:59:58We're all born with nothing, but we can become something.
01:00:01It's honest.
01:00:02That's what I said.
01:00:03You have a choice.
01:00:04Whether you do it or you don't.
01:00:45Mobile, don't linger on, don't linger on.
01:00:45That's where death will fall and burn when you're up in it.
01:00:46Sure, $200.
01:00:47...
01:00:55Definitely.
01:00:55So, I pull all the wrong ideas, but it's an important idea of what you don'tAll you really
01:01:00Looking forward to a meeting, folks, you would find changes.
01:01:00Creates you about the course.
01:01:00I poke in a restaurant, and I passed you.
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