When her husband, Jon, headed out on the night of March 16 to help people in downtown Raleigh after a massive fire engulfed an apartment building, Laura Grant never thought it would be their last.
Acting on his “Navy Seal and medic training,” Jon was doing what Laura had seen him do time and time again—helping those in distress in the wake of tragedy.
The apartment fire was a vacant building under construction that rapidly erupted into a glow that could be seen on doppler radar by meteorologists across the country.
Laura’s worst fears came true, but unlike she thought, it wasn’t his heroic efforts to help those in need that caused harm to her husband.
It was a car accident instead.
Jon had suffered Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI)—a traumatic brain injury that often causes unconsciousness and a persistent vegetative state.
Laura replayed the events of that fateful day in a Facebook post by Love What Matters:
“The last text conversation I had with Jon was how he and his buddy were trying to see if they could help the horrible fire that happened in downtown Raleigh March 16th. Between Jon’s Navy Seal and medic training he was doing what we had all seen him doing before in times of tragedy…helping those in distress. That night when I received the call, my first thought was he had been hurt in the fire as the lady on the phone said your husband is non responsive. Next I was told it was an automobile accident and that he suffered Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI) forcing him into a coma.”
Jon was in a coma, and 90 percent of patients with severe DAI never regain consciousness.
But Jon did.
Today he’s alert, and working tirelessly to re-learn just a fraction of the things he once knew.