“My life was irrevocably changed in a flash of blue light.” It was a lovely evening after a rainy September day, and the first NFL game of 2009 was about to begin. Dayne, my roommate, and I were heading back to our dorm from Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the game. I could smell the wings waiting for us in the rear seat. We were discussing the topics that first-year college boys discuss: ladies, sports, and whether the Titans or Steelers would win. We were Lambuth University football scholarship students, preparing for our first college game.
When Dayne cried, ‘Fletch, look out!’ while I was driving, I checked my rearview mirror. I noticed the approaching car had crossed the double yellow line and was heading straight for us. At that point, I noticed the woman operating the car. In the deepening darkness surrounding us, she was staring down, and the blue light of a device lighted her face. I was in a panic. I had to use some strength to turn the 1988 Samurai I had driven in high school because it didn’t have power steering. This 1999 Honda Accord, on the other hand, has power steering. I didn’t have time to think about power steering because I was in such a hurry. I made an overcorrection and wrenched the steering wheel too forcefully.
I’m sure she could see the result of her decision to gaze down at her screen instead of at the road in her rearview mirror, but she never came to a halt to check on us. My car was already spiraling out of control as her car sped away out of sight. As we hit a railing, I heard a thunderous BOOM!, and then the car was airborne. Over a bridge and down a steep embankment, we appeared to be floating weightlessly. It was strange. Each second stretched out like ripples on a pool’s surface. I could tell I was inverted. ‘Man, we’ve been in the air for a long time!’ I recall thinking. I braced myself for the impact.
I felt my body tensing for the toughest tackle of my life after months of intense training for my first year of collegiate football. It was like sprinting a ball down the middle of the field knowing you’re going to get hit but not knowing when. It was something I kept expecting, and I knew it would be unpleasant. Despite the fact that we couldn’t have been in the ditch for more than a few seconds, it felt like we were witnessing a creepy slow-motion replay of a major game. In anticipation, I remember pushing my head down near my shoulders. However, I have no recollection of the actual crash. I was knocked out almost instantly.
I’m not sure how long I was gone, but when I returned, I discovered the car’s roof had caved in. Dayne’s voice yelling, ‘Fletch! Fletch!’ was the next thing I heard, and it jolted me awake. I was under the impression that he was attempting to wake me up in our dorm room, but I was sound asleep. But it was pitch black, and there was a hazy fog all around us. ‘My father is going to murder me,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’ve only recently purchased this vehicle!’ My parents gave it to me as a high school graduation present. I attempted to roll over but was unable to do so. I was pinned beneath the car’s top, lying on my right arm.
When I tasted muck and leaves, I realized I was in severe trouble. Dayne tried to help me get out of the car, but he was too seriously hurt and bleeding to do so. Why wasn’t I in any discomfort? Why couldn’t I get up? Then I got a thought that chilled my blood. That ditch may flood if it started raining again, engulfing us in murky, filthy water. I couldn’t seem to see anything out the window no matter how hard I tried. However, I noticed moonlight glinting off a large pool of water close to the automobile out of the corner of my eye.
I tried not to panic, but when Dayne said he was going to get help, I begged him not to leave me alone! ‘I’m not going to die!’ He exclaimed, ‘Fletch, we have to get you out of there!’ ‘I swear to God, I’ll get it back to you.’ Then he vanished. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. Being down there alone, hidden from the road above, as the dusk darkened around me and the sound of cars passing by became less frequent, was unnerving. I wanted to scream for aid, but my lungs and throat were weak for some reason. Being stuck there, unable to move, seemed to last a lifetime. I remembered my parents and pondered if this was how my life would end, stranded in a car in a ditch in Jackson, Tennessee.
Other ideas whirled around in my head as if my mind was spinning out of control. ‘I’m not sure how I’m going to get out of here.’ In the morning, we have practice. Is it likely that I will be able to play football tomorrow? ‘What’s the matter with my legs?’ Tears streamed down my cheeks. ‘C’mon, guy,’ I said to myself to calm down. You’ve been working out all this time, so you should be able to get out of this car with ease. Fletcher, please. ‘It’s one, two, three…’ Nothing. My legs must have been broken, but how could that be if I wasn’t in any pain? What was the best way for me to contact my parents? What was the extent of my injuries? I remembered my family, then my high school pals, and finally my teammates. Finally, I heard the ambulance sirens, followed by the voices of the ambulance driver and paramedics at the ditch’s edge.
‘Is anyone down there?’ someone yelled. ‘Down here!’ I thought I was yelling back, but I couldn’t lift my voice at all. ‘Hey, I saw someone down there,’ someone else said. ‘Are you still alive?’ ‘No, I’m speaking from beyond the grave,’ I wanted to say. ‘Are you alive?’ I wondered. ‘What kind of a query is that?!’ In that dark trench, the ambulance’s floodlights were so bright that I had to squint as I heard people running toward me. To get me out, they utilized the Jaws of Life, a hydraulic tool that rips metal apart to open cars in an emergency.
They had to pull me out of the car by my left arm because I was lying on my right side. ‘Please stop!’ I yelled as I felt agony in my arm and neck for the first time. Please put an end to it! Something isn’t right.’ They used a crane to lift me up the steep ascent in a gurney. A young woman inspected me in the rear of the ambulance. Her hand was on my neck, and I felt it. Then I heard her rummaging through my pockets, but I didn’t feel anything. ‘Wow, that’s strange,’ I thought.
She had a lot of questions. ‘Can you tell me where you are?’ Do you have any idea what happened? What’s your name, by the way? ‘Are you able to move your arm?’ ‘Yes, I was involved in an automobile accident. Fletcher Cleaves is my name. ‘I’m 18,’ I responded, trying to keep my voice calm. For her, I moved my right arm. ‘Do you have the ability to move your other arm?’ I made a movement with my left arm. ‘I want you to move your right leg,’ she added. I made a movement with my right leg. She then took a breath and paused. She said it again, ‘Please move your right leg.’ ‘I did!’ says the speaker. She paused once more. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Move your left leg,’ says the instructor. I made a movement with my left leg. Another pause ensues. Then she said it once more. ‘Do you have any movement in your left leg?’ ‘I did,’ I admitted, perplexed. She didn’t look me in the eyes, but I could see she was worried. ‘All right, we’ll take you to the emergency department for some tests,’ she added. That’s when I realized something wasn’t quite right.
‘We think you might have broken your neck,’ she remarked after speaking with someone in hushed tones. I immediately requested that my parents be called. The medical staff had already called them, but because I was over the age of 18, they could only advise my parents that I had been in a vehicle accident and that they should come to the hospital right soon. The staff was unable to provide any additional information due to HIPAA privacy rules. My folks were quickly heading to Jackson from Memphis when I called. My father seemed unconcerned when I informed him I had broken my neck because he was relieved to hear me sounding coherent. None of us knew what that meant in terms of recovery and long-term disability at the time.
In the Kung Fu movies I grew up watching, a character would break his neck and instantly die. So the fact that I had a broken neck and was still talking perplexed me. ‘Fletcher, when we got the call from the hospital that you had been in a wreck, we didn’t know what to think,’ my father said, despite his own confusion. But when you called and I heard you speaking clearly and sounded like yourself, I knew whatever else was wrong, we could handle it. We are currently en route to you.’ My shoulders were filled with a chilling sense of dread that followed me all the way to the hospital.
I discovered the truth in the hospital. The car’s roof had caved in, breaking my neck in two places. That was the thing that had knocked me out. So many people in white coats and scrubs rushed around me, taking my vital signs, drawing blood, and interrogating me. I couldn’t move my neck because it was in a brace, so all I could do was look up at the brightness of the ceiling lights and try not to shake. I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of my parents. I just wanted to see someone I knew. I didn’t get to visit Dayne right away at the hospital since another staff was working on him.
‘Are you sure you and Dayne were in the same car?’ a doctor at the ER inquired. He had a puzzled expression on his face. ‘He’s all scratched up, and you’re completely unscathed.’ He informed me Dayne had been flung out of the automobile and must have hit a tree or some bushes. No one could figure out how he managed to climb up an eight-foot slope to find help because his arm was so seriously injured and he was in such a state of shock. Later, Dayne said he felt an angel pushing him, telling him, ‘You have to make it, you have to make it.’ Dayne was discovered staggering in a church parking lot, drenched in blood and bewildered, clutching his arm by a young off-duty cop.
‘You have to find my friend,’ Dayne tried to persuade the police as she dialed 911. The vehicle collided. He’s down in the ditch, trapped.’ Because his speech was slurred, she couldn’t understand what he was saying, and then he passed out. The paramedics, on the other hand, noticed the automobile and rushed down to look for me. I wanted I could talk to him about it, but we both had too much on our plates at the time. When my parents arrived, they soothed me and assured me that everything would be fine. They informed me that some of my coaches and teammates had already arrived and were eager to hear about Dayne and me.
The nurse informed me that they would have to take my garments off in order to avoid having to move my legs or neck. ‘Hey, wait, those are my favorite shorts,’ I argued. ‘We want to try a treatment first to see if we can correct your neck,’ one of the doctors said shortly after. They called it a halo, and they hoped it would save me from surgery and help repair the cracks in my vertebrae. ‘You might want to look away during this phase,’ the doctor advised my parents. I inquired as to what they intended to do, and they informed me that they would have to drill several screws into my head for the halo. I was obviously terrified. When I heard the loud buzz of the drill next to my ear, I braced myself for a nightmare of pain, but it wasn’t that horrible because I was on so many painkillers.
They hooked the halo to some weights after it was wrapped around my head to try to straighten my neck. They kept telling me that I needed to relax my neck. I assured them that I was doing everything I could and that I was as relaxed as possible. But, after repeated attempts, they couldn’t get the bones to line up again since my neck was so muscular from months of intense football training. I was taken in for surgery, but I don’t recall anything. In fact, when I awoke, they informed me that I had been in surgery for nine hours, which astounded me.
When the doctors told us I was paralyzed from the breastplate down, it hit us like a ton of bricks. ‘I’m not going to practice tomorrow,’ was my initial thought. As they spoke with my parents, the physicians’ voices went away. I was too preoccupied with figuring out how I was going to deal with this new reality and what I was going to do about it to pay attention to any more information about what I couldn’t do. Because my head and neck were in a brace, it was difficult to focus on the faces of everyone in the room. The only thing I could do was look up at the harsh, blinding ceiling lights. Everyone was talking about me as if I wasn’t there, and I felt like a piece of furniture.
My father put his hand on my shoulder and I could sense he was crying. But he leaned in close enough for me to see his face. ‘Remember how I assured you that everything would be fine? Even if your body is hurting, your mind and personality are still intact.’ I didn’t have many responsibilities when I was 18, and my life revolved around school, family, football, and females. I’d played football my entire life and was well aware of the gravity of the situation, but all I could think about was the fact that I couldn’t play football any longer. Since I was seven years old, football had been my life. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
The first day after that talk was the lowest point in my life, as I realized I was truly incapacitated. The doctors were not optimistic that it would ever get better. But, once they assured me I wasn’t going to die, I chose to be a man and accept and push through it instead of crying. They told me what I couldn’t do, but I was more interested in learning what I could. As a result, I quickly recovered. I got a taste of defeat, but my family and friends, as well as my support system, helped me focus on hope. ‘The man who says he can and the man who says he can’t are both right,’ my football coach used to say. ‘Will you be a man or a woman?’
It was clear that I was going to lose steam toward my objectives. I was going to miss most of my freshman year, orientation, football season, and spring break with my pals in Daytona Beach. I was going to be unable to live the life I had imagined. I knew I needed to work hard to strengthen my body and get healthy so I could leave this hospital and return to my friends and family, the people I care about. We had a family discussion about the extensive list of things I would be unable to accomplish. I observed my mother’s face shift from panic and bewilderment to the look of strength and determination that I had come to recognize. It mirrored my own and my father’s feelings, so we all agreed that the list would not deter us. People had told me my entire life that I couldn’t accomplish certain things, and I had proven them wrong. We were not about to give up.
The surgeon came in to speak with us after the first procedure. ‘I tried to think of everything I could do to fix you without surgery on the operating table,’ he stated. When I glanced at your physique, I felt like I was gazing at a machine. I didn’t want to cut you up since you were in such good form and your muscles were so defined.’ After a day or two of relaxation, the doctors concluded that a second surgery would be required to stabilize my neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ said the lead doctor. ‘We’ll have to schedule another surgery for you.’ My heart nearly broke when I saw my parents’ disappointment. It was difficult to see my mother cry out in wrath and fury, but all I wanted to do was get fixed up and get back to my life.
My mom and I prayed together and pleaded for a miracle. I was worried going into the second operation since I was more coherent this time. They informed me that they would be working near my vocal cords, and I was unaware that they had informed my parents that I would be unable to talk for a day or two. Against all changes, as soon as I awoke from surgery, I opened my mouth and said loudly, “Where is my father?” ‘They told us you couldn’t speak!’ my parents exclaimed, astonished. ‘Well, I’m hungry,’ I explained. Is it possible for me to have a McGriddle?’ The incisions were healing swiftly. After a few more days, the doctors decided that I wasn’t unwell enough to keep me in the hospital. It was time for me to check into a treatment center.
Prior to the accident, I had been practicing for college ball for five months straight, and all throughout high school before that. My focus was always on the prize of a professional football career. How bizarre it was to learn that I wasn’t getting in shape for football at all, but for the physical therapy tasks that lay ahead.
It was absolutely difficult to handle mentally at first. I had been involved in athletics my entire life until I was 18 years old when it was taken away from me. But I made the decision to conquer and live a happy life. I didn’t want my injury to be my life’s final chapter! I knew I was destined for greatness, and I knew I wanted more out of life than receiving a disability check at home.
People were encouraged when I started recounting my tale to local football teams and high schools, and they kept asking me to come to speak to more groups. I developed a passion for inspiring and motivating others. I also enjoyed the thought that by raising awareness about distracted driving, I was helping to save lives. Overcoming adversity, focusing on your goals and making the right choices, safe driving, the significance of education, the power of faith and forgiveness, and moving forward are just a few of the topics I’ve addressed in my motivational speaking.
I’m a world traveler, motivational speaker, college graduate, homeowner, and a Memphian who refuses to give up 12 years after the accident… They believed the wheelchair would be enough to stop me! People believe that because of my condition, I can’t do a lot of things, but whatever stereotype you have about me or the box you want to put me in, forget it because I won’t fit. Life is what you make it, and the sky is not the limit!”