Welcome to Neal's CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated all in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.
On January 18, 2020, a warm, sunny Saturday morning, Neal met up with a buddy for one of his favorite local mountain bike rides at Balm Boyette Scrub Preserve (
https://www.swampmtbclub.com/balm-boyette-scrub-preserve ). While riding, Neal was thrown from his bike and landed on his head, severely herniating a cervical disc which then damaged his spinal cord at the C3-4-5 level of his upper spine. Once he hit the ground, Neal couldn't move. He was airlifted to a local trauma center where they quickly performed neurosurgery to remove the herniated disc and stabilize his spine. On February 20, Neal finally transferred from the local hospital to the Shepherd Center (
https://www.shepherd.org/ ), a specialty spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation facility in Atlanta. He will be fully immersed in every aspect of neurological rehabilitation for the next several weeks and months, working very hard to make every improvement possible.
