03/18/2025
A quick story about a true hero. About a year ago, two young girls, both college athletes, had a flat tire and pulled off the shoulder on I-10 W. As they were waiting for roadside assistance, an 18-wheeler, driven by a convicted co***ne dealer, smashed into the back of the girls’ car. The in-cab video shows that the driver was texting and drifted off the roadway. One of the girls sustained life-threatening injuries. It was questionable if she was going to survive. For reasons doctors could not ever fathom, she did. Unfortunately, she had burst fractures in the thoracic spine. They told her she was paralyzed. I visited her in the hospital and she greeted me with the biggest smile. We talked for a bit and I asked her, how did she have a positive attitude? She gave me that smile and said, “Do you think I’m never going to walk again? The Lord decided to give me a challenge, that’s all.” I grabbed her hand and said, “Then we are going to walk out of these hospitals together.”
Over the past year, she has endured such agony and disappointment that anybody would simply give up. She didn’t. She never lost faith. Every time she made a little progress, toes moving, feeling in one leg, she would Facetime me. The pain she went through was unimaginable. But we keep encouraging each other, and day by day, she did it. One year later, almost to the day, she stood up, balanced herself in a walker, and took a step. In May, she is going to be on stage for her college graduation. She asked if I, and my colleague, Bailey Wylie, would be there. I told her it would be the proudest moment of a 35-year legal career. To endure, to believe, to have unquestioning faith: Qualities that we so need right now.
Tomorrow, I will tell the ugly side of what is happening to people like this young lady. You will not believe it. You will say, “That just can’t be true…”
Stay tuned, the story has a dark future…