A resident of Charleston, West Virginia, is counting his blessings when he made a miraculous recovery after being declared brain dead by doctors.
36-year-old Eric fell from the second story of an apartment and landed on concrete which damaged the left side of his body. He had to undergo several surgeries in order to stay alive but no one knew if he would recover fully.
“After a couple of days in the hospital, they had written me off completely,” said Eric. “They said even if I made it out, I would be a vegetable. But they didn’t agree I would make it out. So after a few days, because I’m an organ donor, they asked my family if they would be okay with harvesting my organs.”
“I was literally about to have my organs harvested when I took a swing.”
“I guess you can call it a flail, and with that much brain activity, they couldn’t harvest my organs. They said they would have to wait and see what would happen and it was the next day when I opened my eyes.”
Doctors were shaken when they saw Eric coming back to life, and more especially for his family and relatives who were grieving and expecting his death. But Eric was able to be with his family for Thanksgiving, even after being declared brain dead. “My mom probably for the first week or two would come home and just cry,” said Eric. “Because she thought that I was gone.”
Although Eric is alive, his injuries will still need more time to heal and some will never heal completely. “I broke the orbital bone in my left eye but it didn’t require surgery,” he said. “But it still messes with my vision. I broke two bones in my ribs on this side, and I damaged my brain. My brain moved over eight millimeters inside my skull.”
Eric has been impacted by people’s comments on Facebook, from people who declared how much he impacted their lives. He has now found a sense of gratitude in his life and has big plans for the future. “I wanna go back to college and I wanna put my daughter through college. She’s 13, so I have a few years for that. I wanna get my driver’s license back, and I guess I just wanna live the American Dream.”
