On October 2nd 2020 Ryan was in a devastating car accident. The impact caused an injury called a Diffuse Axonal Injury, which is a tearing or shearing of the nerve fibers in his brain. This injury happened in his brain stem too, where messages are sent to the rest of your body to control things like breathing, blood pressure, heart rhythms, swallowing and so much more.
Ryan was unresponsive, he was on a ventilator, he had a procedure done to insert a wire into his brain to monitor pressure changes and so many other tubes and wires.
Soon after his accident one of his doctors came to talk with me about his prognosis. It was poor. They told me it was unlikely that Ryan would ever breathe on his own or wake up and that I should consider discontinuing life support. I was broken. How could I go on without Ryan in my family. That evening I begged and pleaded with God to let Ryan stay with us. I knew I didn’t want him to suffer either so I asked for clear direction from God what His plan was for Ryan and our family. Ryan has known since he was a little boy around 5 that he wanted to be a marine biologist. He was gifted and his ‘reward’ for doing kindergarten work he thought was to boring, was that he could have time in class to read from my college microbiology textbook. He always wanted to learn to scuba dive and was convinced we should do that together, but I was terrified. I always said no. But as we sat in silence (because his brain was so sensitive, stimulation would cause chaos with his heart rate, temperature, blood pressure etc) in my pleading I promised God that if Ryan could recover I would learn Scuba with him.
One of the first things doctors asked him to do was thumbs up, Ryan’s signature picture move. That night, in the 5 minutes per hour I could talk to him, I mustered up my best momma voice and said “Ryan James, show me your thumbs up”, and he did it!!!
The next morning the doctors said it was just reflexes, but I knew better. I had gotten my sign from God! Ryan would not do it again for the trauma team but after they left, I turned the video on my phone and told him to show me and he did it again. I got it on video for them to see that my God is way bigger than their statistics!
It was still very scary and there were small setbacks but for the most part Ryan slowly but steadily began this incredible, frightful, beautiful TBI recovery journey.
With his recovery also came my conviction to keep my end of the deal and figure out how Ryan and I could learn to dive. December 2021, trying to do my very late Christmas shopping, having a small breakdown in Dicks Sporting Goods I called a local dive shop. Through tears, I told the sweet lady on the other end of the phone a bit of Ryan’s story and she knew just who we needed, Shannon & Christina McAteer!
What a blessing it was to find out that of all of the things taken away from Ryan, diving was not going to be one of those things lost! I was yet to discover all of the amazing people that came with the McAteer's! We are so grateful for each and every one!
We received scholarships from Seakers and began classes and online learning. Ryan breezed through, he finished with our class and earned his adaptive Open Water Scuba certification!
It was a completely different story for me. I felt panic while I was under the water. No how many times I told myself, ‘this is not that serious..you are fine’ I struggled to stay under to do the skills I needed to earn my certification. I wanted to do it and I wanted to make good on my promise to God, but I didn’t know how to get over my panic & anxiety. It would have been easy to give up and just say I couldn’t do it….I knew God would understand, but I just couldn’t after I saw what He did for Ryan and all the hard and painful things Ryan had just done.
It took the next year and tons of support and encouragement from all of our Seakers family, but I finally overcame most of my fear and I am now certified too!
Ryan and I are both continuing on our Seakers scuba experience for our advanced certification and hopeful that Ryan can achieve his goal to be able to dive without an adaptive buddy.
Seakers is so much more than a scuba group! These incredible people are all volunteers, no one gets paid to do this but everyone just wants to make things happen. Like the other volunteers, I just can’t get enough of helping Seakers and just being with such incredible caring people.
Please consider buying a ticket (or 10 :)) for the Seakers Helicopter Golf ball Drop! Not only are you entering for a chance to win some great prizes but your donation goes straight back to Seakers for them to continue their scholarship program. Your donation will change someone’s life!
