A medical, legal, and
informational resource
for persons dealing with
traumatic brain injury.

STORIES OF AMAZING RECOVERIES

Submitted by: Mandy McGehee
Contact Via: mcgeheem@bellsouth.net
Submitted on: June 13, 2005

On August 15, 1998 I was in a near fatal car accident. I was asleep in the front passenger side of a Chevrolet Cavalier driven by my mother. We were on I-20 West in Jackson, MS. It began raining heavily and my mom hit a water pocket in the road an hydroplaned. She ran off the road and flipped over three times. My mother was not hurt badly. She was able to get out of the car herself. Although I was buckled up, the point of impact forward and I was caught in the frame of the car. I suffered a skull fracture as a result of the impact. I was rushed to a nearby hospital where I underwent emergency brain surgery. As a result of the skull fracture and bleeding, a blood clot formed in my brain. This blood clot was causing my brain to swell. Surgeons told my family that night that I would probably die in surgery and that if I did live I had no chance at a meaningful recovery. A lot of friends and family began praying for me immediately. When I lived through the surgery, doctors only gave me a 20% chance to live. People began to pray harder. After it was determined that I would live, doctors told my family that I would probably have the mentality of a 6-year-old for the rest of my life, because they thought the brain damage was so severe. Friends and family continued to pray. On August 31, 1998, after being in ICU for two weeks, I was transferred to Mississippi Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, MS. There I received physical, occupational, speech, and respiratory therapy. I had traumatic amnesia as a result of the injury, so I don't remember much about the first couple of weeks of my stay at MMRC. I regained my memory the first week of September and began doing much better. I was released from MMRC October 9, 1998. I walked out of the hospital on my own. I began outpatient rehabilitation the last week in October and returned to College in January of 1999. I graduated from Mississippi College December 22, 2000 with a B.S. in Communications. While in college after the accident, I made the Dean's list! It was the third semester after I returned to college. I have also gone back to school at MC to work on my Master's degree in Secondary Education. I have a 3.75 GPA and will graduate in May 2006. My neurosurgeon and neurologist have both told people that they think I am a miracle. My therapist at MMRC told me that they had never had a patient recover as quickly and as well as I did. They cried when I left and came to see me graduate from college. I have read my medical records myself. My mother is a Registered Nurse, so I have grown up around medical terminology and I know from what the records say that medically I should not be alive. I know without a doubt I am here because God saved my life. He healed me so that I can share my story with others and be a testimony of his healing power!