On Jan. 12, 2013, Jackson, Tenn., mom Paige Thomas received a phone call from a bystander notifying her that her son, Chase Davis, had experienced a devastating fall while hiking in Chattanooga, where he was a student at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Davis was hiking with two friends when he fell 20 feet and was barely conscious. He was airlifted to a local hospital, where he remained in the trauma ICU for a month.
During that month, Davis was on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma. His injuries also required that he have a craniotomy, a surgical operation where the bone flap is removed from the skull to access the brain. A craniotomy is most common in traumatic brain injury patients, like Davis. While in the trauma ICU, Davis developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and was on the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine for five days. After his stay, Davis was transferred to a rehab center in Atlanta that specializes in patients with brain injuries. He was discharged home after two months but wasn’t responsive to treatments until six months later when he had surgery to replace the bone flap in his brain. After that surgery, he started talking and eating again. At that time, Thomas started calling rehabilitation centers in the West Tennessee area to help her son on his journey to recovery. She got in touch with Monika Kolwaite, a physical therapist at Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown. Kolwaite recommended that they set an appointment with Dr. Sunita Jain, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at Baptist Rehab-Germantown.
“I loved her,” said Thomas of Dr. Jain. “She clearly looked over Chase’s chart and cared. She took us under her wing.”
Davis was admitted into the Next Step program at Baptist Rehab-Germantown, an intense outpatient program with occupational, physical and speech therapy.
“They genuinely loved him,” said Thomas of Davis’ health care team at Baptist Rehab-Germantown. “They are a really good team of people who tried multiple options to help Chase. And Monika is helping him learn to run again.”
Davis was discharged in February 2014 and still goes to outpatient rehab at Baptist Rehab-Germantown four days a week, in addition to multiple other therapy programs within the Memphis area.
“What I appreciated about the program was that they love the patient,” said Thomas. “They are not just going to a job. They genuinely care. It’s a small program with efficient professionals providing one-on-one attention.”
The Baptist Rehab-Germantown team helped the family figure out what to do after Davis was discharged, setting him up with speech and music therapy in Jackson.
“Chase is a miracle in part thanks to people put in his path,” said Thomas. “God has been so present through this entire experience!”
Baptist Rehab-Germantown is a 50-bed inpatient rehab facility, with 18-skilled inpatient beds, that offers a comprehensive array of inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services designed to allow a patient’s complete course of care to take place under one roof. Baptist Rehab-Germantown concentrates on a variety of rehabilitation and diagnostic services, both inpatient and outpatient, to treat many types of injuries and conditions, such as stroke, arthritis, spine and back disorders and injuries, fractures, amputations, and spinal cord and head injuries. The hospital offers an open MRI machine, as well as a Wound Prevention and Management Center. For more information, please visit germantown.baptistonline.org.