The Incident

Matt was experiencing the worst headaches of his life that day.

“It feels like my brain is hammering the inside of my skull,” Matt’s mother, Mary, recalls what her son told her that evening. Matt took some medication and headed to bed early, hoping sleep would make the pain go away. A couple hours later, Mary heard screams coming from Matt’s room. She rushed in to find her son seizing violently on the floor. Matt had never experienced any serious health problems before and this was as serious as it gets. Mary called 911 in a frenzy. After the ambulance arrived, Matt continued to seize and was revived 4 times by paramedics before making it to University Hospital.

Then there was darkness…

Matt woke up from a coma 10 days later unable to speak or move, and oblivious to what had happened. Having taken classes in American Sign language, Matt signed to his nurses that he thought it was still February 7th, 2013, the day of the incident, and that he had just finished up classes at Ashland University for the day. The truth was much more bleak.

Matt had contracted viral encephalitis, a rare disease that attacked his brain. In most cases, doctors have no idea what causes the condition. What they do know is Matt’s fever increased and his brain started to swell causing the seizures and extensive coma.

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