Perris Jones’s life changed forever on the evening of Thursday, November 9th, 2023, during an ACC matchup between the University of Virginia and the University of Louisville. About halfway through the third quarter, Jones – a running back for the University of Virginia – caught a pass and turned upfield. “We had just acquired some momentum during the game, so juices were flowing. I caught the ball in space, tried to make a big collision, then upon that collision my whole body went limp. Couldn’t feel anything, just kind of fell to the ground. I remember thinking ‘I really can’t move.’ I waited for the trainers to come, told them I couldn’t move, after that just proceeded to try and calm myself down.”
His head-on impact with a Louisville defender immediately shut down movement in his extremities. “The training staff was just trying to see if I had any sensation anywhere. They made sure to keep me calm and my body still while they were doing their thing.”
From L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium, Jones was transferred to UofL Health. The first few hours and days of his treatment were, “…hectic. That was my first experience with a trauma in the ER, and there was a whole stampede of people asking a whole bunch of questions. There were a whole bunch of tests and different scans, and they finally took me up to my room once that was done. That was the first time I felt like I could breathe and relax. It was a lot, but they took great care of me.”
He notes that some limited feeling eventually started to return when he received his diagnosis from the UofL Health medical team.
“A couple hours later…the doctors told me that my spinal cord, the passageway, was infringed upon by the disc, and the hit made the disc protrude into my spinal cord, which contributed to why I couldn’t feel or move anything. They determined that the best course of action was to go into surgery and create that space to open up that passageway again. There really wasn’t a choice to make, it was just like…alright, that’s what we’re doing.”
Jones’s spinal surgery was performed the morning of Friday, November 10, just hours after the initial injury. “They removed the protruding disc, put in some metal to replace it, and then another metal plate to keep it where it was.” The procedure took several hours, and he was moved to Frazier Rehab one week later. “I was ready for the next step. I could move right after surgery so I was focused on the path to recovery at that point, trying to do as much as I could as safely as I could to get back to as normal as possible.”
Jones, who was discharged on November 28, 2023, has nothing but kind words for the staff at UofL Health and Frazier Rehabilitation Institute, recalling that they, “…were outstanding. You can’t ask for better care, truly. I imagine whenever they drew it up in the book, that’s exactly how they enacted it. It was textbook. They’re really family now, as opposed to just nurses, doctors, therapists…everybody took me in as if I were their own, and treated me as part of their family, and treated my family as such, as well. You can’t ask for better care and treatment from the UofL system as well as here at Frazier…You could feel the comfort and the warmth and the support coming from them.”
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