It Can Wait

Today, we had the opportunity to meet Fletcher Cleaves. Fletcher was a starting freshman football player at Lambuth University under coach Hugh Freeze. But the story doesn't start there. All Fletcher's life he was constantly told that he was too little and he couldn't do it. Fletcher didn't let it get to him and get him down, though. He always took that and let it motivate him to prove people wrong. When he worked his tail off to sign a national letter of intent with Lambuth to play football, he was only 1 of the 2 freshman out of 30 that Coach Hugh Freeze would be taking on the bus for away games, the other was his roommate. Just two days before he was supposed to start in his first collegiate football game, Fletcher and his roommate decided to drive to Buffalo Wild Wings and pick up some supper and head back to the dorm to watch Ole Miss and Alabama play. After leaving Buffalo Wild Wings, Fletcher was driving with his roommate, the other freshman that would be suiting up for away games, when his roommate called his name and told him to watch out. Fletcher swerved to miss an oncoming car that had crossed the double yellow lines onto his side, overcorrecting, and landing upside down in a ravine, trapping him and ejecting his friend. Once he realized what had happened, his friend had gotten help and next thing he knew, he was in the back of an ambulance. Before anyone had told him any details of his own condition, he knew one thing: he wasn't hurting. When the EMT asked him to move his right leg and then his left leg, he thought he did, but the EMT knew that it was bad. His legs never moved. Fletcher had sustained a C5-C6 spinal cord injury and was forever paralyzed from the chest down.

The cause of the accident that could have been avoided? DISTRACTED DRIVING

Fletcher spent a total of 10 days in the hospital where is doctor gave him a list of things he would never be able to do again. He wasn't phased, though. He had been doubted all his life. But he always worked his hardest and proved people wrong. He even proved the doctor wrong. Fletcher spent the next 9 moths in Atlanta at The Shepard Center receiving top notch therapy from 8 am until 5 pm every single day. Today, Fletcher travels the world as a motivational speaker and advocates against distracted driving. One thing Fletcher didn't do was let his situation affect his outlook on life. He knew that there were people out there who were worse off than he was and he was going to make the best out of his "new" life. Fletcher went on to move into his own apartment by himself, learn how to do his own wheelchair transfers, go back to college, drive an adaptive truck, graduate from the University of Memphis with a computer science degree, and now has a career with AutoZone headquarters in downtown Memphis as an IT professional. Fletcher has never let his disability get to him. He has found the positive side of every negative situation he has ever been faced with.

"Whether someone tells you that you can, or someone tells you that you can't... they're right." 

It's all about how you respond to the circumstances that life has given you. If you believe when someone tells you that you can't do something, you will never be able to do it. But if someone tells you that you can't do something and you use that as motivation to work hard to prove them wrong, you will win every time. Something that stood out to me was when Fletcher said "You've heard that when life hands you lemons you make lemonade. Well the way I look at it, life handed me lemons and I planted the seeds and built a lemonade stand." Fletcher has spent his time traveling the world advocating against distracted driving and as a motivational speaker. His mission is to motivate, inform, and inspire people with his story and hopefully, save lives by showing people first hand why distracted driving is incredibly dangerous and selfish and can absolutely be avoided. We live in a world today where the young drivers have been texting longer than they've been driving and they more experienced drivers have been driving longer than they've been texting, so both age groups think that they can multitask. The truth of the matter is that multitasking is a myth. Our brain simply switches back and forth between the two or more tasks so quickly that it makes us believe they're happening simultaneously, or multitasking. Another point Fletcher made that really made me realize how selfish our world is today is "If I told you that you were three times as likely to be in a car wreck if you're wearing a red shirt, I guarantee that you would make sure you weren't wearing red. But That's the same statistic with distracted driving. You are three times more likely to be in a car accident if you are a distracted driver. So why do we still do it? We know the laws and the dangers of distracted driving, yet we still choose to do it." So many people say "It'll never happen to me" and the sad part about it is it might not happen to you, but you could be the cause of taking someone else's life. 

So, what now? Going forward, I believe that this was a good base of learning and knowledge about spinal cord injuries and what the challenges are that they face daily, as well as how distracted driving doesn't only affect the person is distracted behind the wheel, but can affect an innocent persons life tremendously. I am 100% on board with advocating against distracted driving and helping share Fletcher's story. This is a very serious issue and going into the occupational therapy field, it's something we should all be advocating.

In closing, don't be a selfish driver.
Don't be a distracted driver.
No text is worth it.
No email is worth it.
No google search is worth it.
No Netflix show is worth it.
No "selfie" or Snapchat is worth it.
Put the phone down. Keep your hands on the wheel. Keep your eyes on the road. It can wait.

Click HERE to watch Fletcher's video by AT&T about distracted driving.

"How can we say the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon?"

Click the link to visit Fletcher's website and hear his story. I promise you will receive a blessing. https://www.fletchercleaves.com/