“Have you ever had a day where everything changes? It’s like one day everything is fine and you’re just living life and doing your thing and you think you know where you’re headed and then something changes and it’s a game changer?”
The voice and words of Pastor Ryan May, of the local Net Church that meets at Rave Motion Pictures in East Ridge, Tenn., sets the scene for his father’s “Sam May Documentary.”
Sam May was driving down Highway 27 in Soddy-Daisy headed home from a welding job in Arkansas Feb. 27, 2010, when he fell asleep behind the wheel and his van hit a mound of dirt that flipped the vehicle off of the overpass and onto the street below near the Sequoyah Access Road Exit. The van was completely totaled and May was badly injured.
After many surgeries and two years of rehabilitation, his miraculous story is changing people’s lives.
“It’s not over until God says it’s over,” said Sam’s devoted wife Roni May. “Sam is a fighter.”
Her husband, who now resides in Rock Spring at Safehaven rehab center, is in recovery from a traumatic brain injury he sustained from his car accident. Doctors said he would never function again.
“In the beginning he had no speech, no facial expression and no communication,” said Roni May. “He had C1 and C2 fractures that cause paralysis and he had a stroke. He had plates and pins in his neck and his pelvis. He kept having medical emergencies.”
However, Sam May continued to fight to regain his former self. His first mode of communication was by blinking twice for “yes” and once for “no.” He blinked in response to words of the alphabet to spell.
“He moved a finger, then a hand, then a foot, then he started saying words,” said Roni May, who takes Sam to therapy daily and to church every Sunday. “Sam always said, ‘I’m good at starting over.’ His first word was ‘drink.'”
Sam and Roni May will share the touching story of his recovery with the newly formed Catoosa County Pilot Club at the branch’s first meeting Monday, March 11 at 6 p.m. in the Catoosa County Library meeting room. The meeting is partly in celebration of Brain Awareness Week.
“Sam has made great progress here,” said Safehaven Executive Director Vickie Hodge. “He and Roni have a full schedule with therapy and visiting friends. They leave at 10 a.m. and come back at 6 p.m. We provide nursing care to him here 24/7. He goes to East Ridge Life Care Center three times per week for therapy.”
It’s all in your head
The 14-member Battlefield Pilot Club of Walker County is assisting in starting the Catoosa County Pilot Club with hopes of recruiting 20 members, said Catoosa County Pilot Club Steering Committee member Judy Vendrick, who lives in Chickamauga.
“We are a volunteer service organization and our main focus is brain-related disorders and disabilities,” she explained.
Catoosa County Pilot Club Steering Committee member Rene Koss, of Ringgold, said members don’t have to be from a certain county to join and members from both Georgia and Tennessee are welcome. She said anyone with a desire to help people with traumatic brain injury can join Pilot Club.
The mission of Pilot International is to serve by furthering humanitarian efforts through charitable, educational and research programs in communities throughout the world. The club motto is “Pilots don’t always fly a plane … they help others protect their brain.” The Catoosa County Pilot Club will travel to schools to teach children how to protect their brains through, for example, wearing helmets when they ride a bicycle.
For more information or to make reservations to attend the upcoming meeting, contact Judy Vendrick at beapilot2@gmail.com or 423-994-5525; Rene’ Koss at crayolaczy@gmail.com or 423-503-5002; or Lisa Pierce at fourpiercesnga@bellsouth.net or 423-718-3903.