Print Issue: November 28, 2002

'Now I'm Thankful For Everything': Teen Makes Miraculous Recovery After Accident

Tom Clements, left, and T.J. Clements sit in the chapel where the elder Clements often went and prayed following a July 26 automobile accident that left his son in a coma for 12 days. (Photo by Michael Alexander)

By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

ALPHARETTA-On July 26, T.J. Clements was riding with three friends to a park to play Frisbee when the car he was in veered to miss a stretch of roadwork and hit a telephone pole.

While his three buddies suffered less serious injuries, T. J. was not so fortunate. Airlifted to Grady Hospital with brain injuries, the 17-year-old fought for his life. Doctors resorted to a barbiturate-induced coma to try and get his brain swelling down, but were not sure he'd survive.

His parents, Tom and Julie Clements, were coming home from a movie when they learned what happened. They were not permitted to see him at the scene.

"That call was the worst call of my life," Clements, the father of four, said recently. "When they're telling you your kid's being airlifted to Grady, you know your kid's in a world of hurt."

The first week, their emotions went from hope to fear to despair and exhaustion as doctors gave increasingly worse reports about their only son.

"You don't know, so you just try to hold onto hope," Clements said. "When I asked one day if he was going to live, I expected the doctor to say, 'Oh sure, yeah, he'll live, it's just a matter of quality of life.' Instead the doctors said, 'We'll know in the next 24 hours.' That scared the heck out of us."

But the Clements, parishioners of St. Benedict Church in Duluth, believed in the power of prayer. It's a belief they hold more than ever after T.J's experience, which blessed their family in both desperately sought and unexpected ways.

Tom, despite feeling a little foolish about it, began e-mailing friends with regular updates on his son's condition and asked for their prayers. The founder of Southern Catholic College wondered whether "people who know me as a loud-mouthed, insensitive boob" would recognize that it was the same guy and he wondered how they would respond.

His friends prayed, and forwarded the updates to other friends and family members. Their "prayer warrior" list eventually mushroomed to a few thousand.

With his family at his bedside, T.J. lay in a coma for 12 days. But four days after the accident, Clements awoke at 2:30 a.m. and heard a "whisper" that his son would be given back to him. When he and his wife went to the hospital that morning, they learned that T.J.'s brain pressure had started to go down to an acceptable range after midnight.

On Aug. 4 Clements wrote in the e-mail: "T.J. moved for the first time since the accident. He just so happened to move for the first time in the middle of a Mass where about 200 people prayed for him. He has now moved his head and both hands. He hasn't yet moved those size 16 feet, but heck, that has to be a lot of effort . . . Permanent brain damage is what we all fear and we just won't know. They all say that it will be a long recovery process."

On Aug. 7 T.J. woke up and squeezed his dad's hand. When he was able to give a thumbs-up signal to a nurse, they were "ecstatic."

In the following days T.J. was taken off a ventilator. One day he held up three fingers when asked the square root of nine. After a week of illnesses, T.J. was transferred Aug. 15 to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. His first recollection of the accident was riding from Grady to the Shepherd Center. Shortly thereafter he found the strength to write. One of his first sentences was "I want a red Slurpee from Burger King."

Two weeks after coming out of a coma, the 6'3" teenager was going to the Shepherd Center cafeteria on a walker and writing his mom a birthday card "from your baby boy" and telling her "I love you." His father noted that a doctor called his progress "incredibly amazing." Six weeks and two hospitals later, T.J. came home. By the time he left he was eating regular food, remembering most things and only occasionally getting confused.

For him, his rapid recovery seemed like the "normal rate." They stopped on the way home at the Grady ICU, where they were surprised to be met by the neurosurgeon, intensive care doctor, six or so nurses, a hospital trustee and the head of the unit.

"They were excited to see a miracle. One doctor said, 'This is why I got into medicine.' The other told T.J. that he was his first patient ever to come out of a barbiturate coma," Clements wrote.

T.J. believes the constant support of his family and friends and God's intervention are what pulled him through, along with his strong desire to get back to school.

"Obviously I'm thankful that I'm alive at all. I'm just lucky to be here . . . I wanted to get back to school as quickly as possible to see my friends," he said. "It really dawned on me that stuff can actually happen. I'm not as invincible as I thought I was. In fact, I'm not invincible at all."

He was very moved by a boy at the Shepherd Center who had been in a car accident a year ago that left him extremely disabled.

"If I have the chance (to recover) I should take advantage of it," T.J. said. "If I'm able to recover I should do the best with what I have."

The teen is now asking himself "where do I go from here?" He says he used to be self-centered and indifferent toward religion, but now he feels deep gratitude and believes "I should be a good person and give back to God and do my best to help others."

While the doctors had said there was a 95 percent chance he wouldn't return to school this semester, he gladly started back on Oct. 4, going half days. He is working out and went to his homecoming dance. He will graduate with his class in May.

While he wouldn't wish this experience on anyone, Clements is amazed at all the good that has come from it. The men's group at St. Benedict's had a breakfast in honor of his recovery and how the crisis united the congregation. People from different denominations and on different continents have prayed for T.J. He believes his son's story has brought more people to prayer and hope.

"They see this kid they've been praying for start to come around. The doctor said they did everything they could medically and there's no explanation for it. It really is miraculous."

While calling himself a "control freak," Clements now reflects on the peace and "immense gratitude" he and his wife have after they faced the very difficult task of waiting and praying incessantly for their son's healing.

The family has experienced a "remarkable transformation" and a gentler T.J. with a new sense of calm and perspective is helping the family to be more faithful every day. He "has kind of led the family to holiness," to become much more patient and accepting of each other. The family spends more time together, something they didn't do enough of before, and is stronger and "incredibly grateful."

"I believe God saved him for a reason. God's calling him to something. His job is to listen."

T.J. is thankful for every breath of life and will surely have his most meaningful Thanksgiving ever. While he misses simple things like playing football with his friends, he feels that "it really straightened up my priorities."

"I used to be not a very good kid. I like my friends a lot more. I like my family a lot more and I like God a lot more. I can't get enough of life," he said. "I used to have stuff to be thankful for and I really wasn't. Now I'm just thankful for everything."