September 2003: Vol. 82, No. 4

fter graduating from UGA in 1973, James Shepherd went on a dream vacation that would take him to the far corners of the globe for what he thought would be the better part of a year. As is sometimes the case with the sons of well-to-do families, Shepherd was a daredevil. Sky diving, motorcycles, SCUBA diving, drag racing. You name it and Shepherd was into it—including body surfing, which is what he was doing at Rio's Copacabana Beach on Oct. 21, 1973, when a 12-foot wave crashed into him in shallow water.

James Shepherd

Shepherd's body was navy blue when friends pulled him from the surf. He survived the initial accident, but over the course of a five-week stay in a Brazilian hospital he got closer and closer to death. He had broken his fourth cervical vertebrae and his once-athletic body had shriveled to just 82 pounds. If his parents hadn't gotten him medevaced back to the States in an Air Force C-141, the rest of James Shepherd's wonderful life—one in which he has helped 30,000 people with injuries like his—would never have happened.

As we learn in Alex Crevar's cover story on Shepherd, the quality of care that Shepherd received while rehabbing at Craig's Hospital in Denver is what convinced his parents that a similar facility was needed in the Southeast. So they created one. Nearly three decades later, Atlanta's Shepherd Center is the country's largest catastrophic care hospital specializing in the treatment of people with spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, multiple sclerosis, and other neuromuscular illnesses. And James, now a successful businessman and father of two UGA students, is the driving force behind the whole operation.

The Shepherd Center helps people like 17-year-old Matthew Conner, who was severely injured when his four-wheel ATV collided with a pickup truck. Matthew was comatose for three weeks following the accident and when he arrived at the Shepherd Center his jaw was wired shut and he had a rod implanted in his shattered leg. To make matters worse, he was frequently agitated because his brain was just waking up again and he couldn't respond to stimuli the way he wanted to. After four weeks at Shepherd, Matthew was able to follow routine directions and respond appropriately to his environment. Speech therapist Karen Patterson helped him improve his voice quality and attention span, and sports played a role in Matthew's recovery. One day, during a rehab session in a Shepherd Center gymnasium, a therapist tossed a ball to Matthew, who swung his baseball bat, made solid contact—and just instinctively took off running with the help of a therapist holding onto his belt.

"That was a turning point," says Matthew's mother. "He wasn't in the wheelchair much at all after that hit!"

Turning points are what the Shepherd Center is all about. Sometimes, as in Matthew Conner's case, it's a turning point in physical therapy. Other times, as in James Shepherd's case, it's a turning point in one's entire life.

"If what happened to me hadn't happened," says Shepherd, "life would be different for the 30,000 people we've helped."

khannon@uga.edu

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