William Neal
What Happened? On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at approximately 4:25 pm, our beautiful, vibrant, healthy 12-year-old son was struck by a speeding car while walking home from school.
The Scene-
Gregory was on his way home when he decided to cross a busy roadway. To the best of our knowledge, he took the full impact of a passing car, and was projected approximately 40 feet, receiving extreme head and body trauma. He was transported as unresponsive by EMS to CHOA Scottish Rite Hospital in Atlanta where he was revived and admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. He endured a period of 17 days on full life support, and as a direct result of the skilled care he received combined with prayers from our community, managed to survive his injuries. But he is negatively changed forever.
The Consequences for Gregory-
Several months after his horrific incident, the catastrophic injuries leaves Gregory disabled with several day to day functional challenges, the worst being a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and severe neurological disruption to his ability to keep his balance, use his hands, and to process speech. After a couple of weeks in the CHOA Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, he was stabilized medically, and began to show very small but hopeful signs of a potential for healing. He was transferred to the CHOA Pediatric Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit where he began two and a half months of fighting very hard every day to come back to us. Gregory had to relearn the most simple of tasks such as how to speak, cough, blow his nose, drink, eat, move his arms and legs, basic toileting, and other functions we all take for granted. Gregory spent many difficult hours each day working hard with an army of amazing therapists, nurses and medical staff doing everything they could to help him emerge. I firmly believe he was directly aided by the prayers and well wishes from hundreds of people who let us know they were there for him.
Family History-
Gregory’s parents although living separately, each actively co-parent Gregory, his paternal twin, and their oldest son. Due to extreme financial difficulties involving Gregory’s Father preceding the horrific accident, he had become unable to sustain himself financially or contribute appropriately to the vast expenses of raising the family. This responsibility had fallen chiefly upon the Mother, and Gregory’s near-fatal incident proved to be a decisive tipping point toward severely damaging the entire family’s financial well-being.
Although things have stabilized somewhat since the accident, the complex rearrangement of life for the family remains to present financial hurdles. Gregory has a very long road ahead of medical care, rehabilitation, therapeutic caregiving, and years of expenses directly related to this unnecessary incident. These prospects have brought the entire family to their knees.