Post by Shepherd Center

After sustaining a C3-C5 spinal cord injury (SCI), a sly sense of humor has been a key ingredient in Tristan Thompson's rehabilitation. Every year, Tristan, 19, and his dad leave San Antonio, Texas, to go mountain biking in Bentonville, Arkansas. On July 2, 2025, Tristan went down a significant drop where he says he braked too late and was flung over his handlebars. Following his injury, he was life-flighted to the Mercy Hospital ICU in Springfield, Missouri. After 22 days, he was transferred to Shepherd’s ICU for specialized treatment, with his mom, Jennifer, by his side. His level of injury limited his movement from the neck down, and when he first arrived at Shepherd, he required assistance from a ventilator and tracheostomy to breathe. “We got to Shepherd, and they immediately had him sitting up out of bed and began motivating him,” Jennifer explains. “He even had a welcoming crew of kids who were patients. They wheeled into his ICU room, introduced themselves and their injuries, and talked about what they had gotten back so far. It was very uplifting.” After moving from the ICU, Tristan participated in a number of therapies; the most impactful, he recalls, was electrical stimulation, which was applied over the spinal column to activate his muscles. His team helped him use a tilt table to regulate his fluctuating blood pressure. And they did speech therapy with breathing exercises, which helped him wean off the ventilator a month after arriving at Shepherd. But beyond the focused therapies Tristan received, he appreciated the hospital staff the most, and he showed them that appreciation with his signature sense of sarcasm. “I didn’t have a problem psychologically at Shepherd because it was so positive there,” Tristan recalls. “We would just make fun of each other and laugh – there was never an awkward moment. And whenever I’d see a therapist from my team working with another patient, I’d make sure to give them crap by reminding them, ‘Hey, that’s my therapist, give her back!’” On Sept. 22, Tristan was discharged from Shepherd and returned to his hometown in San Antonio. Prior to his injury, Tristan attended college at Texas Tech University with his girlfriend, Paula Brame. Paula stopped attending school in person so she could be there for him, but now the pair plans to return to school together. To learn more about Tristan's recovery, read the full story here: https://bit.ly/4xjFPku #PatientRecovery #PatientStory #HumorHeals #SpinalCordInjuryRecovery #ShepherdCenter #Atlanta