[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/03\/justin-story-50ph\/#Article","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/03\/justin-story-50ph\/","headline":"Ryan Shazier’s 50 Phenoms: Man Pushes Forward After Losing Legs in Crash","name":"Ryan Shazier’s 50 Phenoms: Man Pushes Forward After Losing Legs in Crash","description":"Justin Dawson heard the sirens at night. From his room at UPMC Mercy, he could hear when the firetrucks from the busy station across the street would go out on a call. The sounds comforted Justin, who was rehabbing after losing both legs when a driver hit him at his job outside the East River […]","datePublished":"2020-03-05","dateModified":"2023-04-17","author":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.upmc.com\/services\/rehab","name":"Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation","url":"https:\/\/www.upmc.com\/services\/rehab","sameAs":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/physical-medicine-and-rehabilitation\/","parentOrganization":"UPMC"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"UPMC HealthBeat","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/UPMC-HealthBeat-Logo.png","url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/UPMC-HealthBeat-Logo.png","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Justin.jpg","url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Justin.jpg","height":325,"width":754},"url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/03\/justin-story-50ph\/","about":["Health Topics A-Z","Rehabilitation","UPMC Stories"],"wordCount":2044,"keywords":["Ryan Shazier's 50 Phenoms","Ryan Shazier\u2019s 50 Phenoms Season 1"],"articleBody":"Justin Dawson heard the sirens at night.From his room at UPMC Mercy, he could hear when the firetrucks from the busy station across the street would go out on a call.The sounds comforted Justin, who was rehabbing after losing both legs when a driver hit him at his job outside the East River Mountain Tunnel in West Virginia. The sirens brought back memories of his own 10 years as a firefighter.\u201cI would sit up there in the window and just look down and look at the fire department,\u201d Justin says. \u201cIt gave me a little bit of hope.\u201dThe crash cost Justin both legs and his dream job\u2014one he had just accepted in Virginia Beach. But it didn\u2019t take away his spirit.From the immediate aftermath of the crash in late October 2018 to now, about a year and a half later, Justin stayed positive. He didn\u2019t give in to the injury or what he lost. He focused on what he still had.Today Justin, 25, lives in West Virginia with his fianc\u00e9e. He has two prosthetic legs that he\u2019s working to master. He still wants to help people.\u201cYou can\u2019t give up,\u201d he says. \u201cLife\u2019s not over after an accident. Everybody\u2019s accident is different. You\u2019ve got to figure out how to live your life again. You\u2019ve got to learn to get back to it.\u201d\u2018An Out-of-Body Experience\u2019It started as a normal work morning for Justin on Oct. 30, 2018. He worked with the emergency response team (ERT) for the Virginia Department of Transportation at the East River Mountain Tunnel, which connects Virginia and West Virginia on Interstate 77. His job included helping motorists and keeping the traffic flowing.An hour into his shift, at around 7 a.m., Justin saw a motorist stranded because of car battery trouble. He decided to help and told the driver to pull over to a shoulder. Justin then called his co-workers, who drove the service truck to them for assistance.After completing some other work, Justin returned to see if he could help further. He got out of his car, put on his safety gear, and walked to the rear of the service truck. As he did so, he looked back toward the tunnel and saw another car coming in the direction of the shoulder.\u201cIt was like slow motion,\u201d Justin says. \u201cI\u2019m watching him, and he\u2019s slowly coming over on the shoulder, and in my mind, I\u2019m thinking he\u2019s going to swerve over or something \u2013 it\u2019ll be OK.\u201dExcept the driver didn\u2019t swerve, and the car kept coming. At the last second, out of instinct, Justin grabbed the tailgate of the service truck and jumped.The vehicle struck him in his lower body, pinning him to the service truck and severely injuring both legs. The truck rolled off the hood of the car, and Justin was dragged to the ground.He knew instantly he was in trouble. In addition to his VDOT work, Justin was a volunteer firefighter in West Virginia, but he had just accepted a full-time firefighter job in Virginia Beach. Justin thought of that opportunity \u2013 his dream \u2013 and knew with his legs gone, the job would be gone, too.Then he felt the blood on his right leg. He knew it was an arterial bleed from his first responder training.\u201cI remember just laying there, no emotion at all,\u201d Justin says. \u201cJust, I mean, what are you going to do? Everybody\u2019s coming over there and they\u2019re like, \u2018Don\u2019t look down, don\u2019t look down. It\u2019s so crazy, just like an out-of-body experience, just watching everybody around you.\u201dJustin\u2019s co-workers rushed to action, applying tourniquets to both legs to stop the bleeding. An ambulance took him to a hospital in nearby Bluefield, Va. Then, a helicopter took him to Charleston (W.Va.) Area Medical Center, where doctors amputated his left leg above the knee and his right leg above the ankle.\u00a0\u2018I\u2019ve Got to Make the Best Out of What I\u2019ve Got\u2019Justin remembers the reaction of his family and friends when he woke up in the hospital after his amputation surgery.\u201cEverybody was all around me, and asking me questions, and telling me it\u2019s going to be OK, and crying,\u201d he says.His reaction was more muted.\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve once shed a tear or anything over the loss of my legs,\u201d he says.\u201cIt does me no good to sit around and mope, or cry, or complain, or feel sorry for myself because it\u2019s not going to do me any good. Nothing\u2019s going to bring my legs back, so it does me no good to be miserable all the time. I\u2019ve got to make the best out of what I\u2019ve got.\u201dAs he was in the hospital, Justin told his girlfriend, Jessica Thomas, he wouldn\u2019t blame her if she wanted to break up with him. She refused.\u201cI was just (saying), \u2018I\u2019m going to be there for you no matter what happens,\u2019\u201d says Jessica, now Justin\u2019s fianc\u00e9e. \u201c\u2018No matter what obstacles we have to come across, I\u2019m here.\u2019\u201dThe words touched Justin: \u201cSupport\u2019s the biggest thing you need,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s what keeps you going. It gives you the drive that you need to wake up every day.\u201dJustin would need that drive to get through a grueling rehabilitation process. His uncle, who works in the emergency department at UPMC East, arranged for Justin\u2019s transportation to the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute at UPMC Mercy.The first portion of Justin\u2019s rehab process involved two weeks of extensive physical and occupational therapy.Phebe Lockyer, OTR\/L, Justin\u2019s occupational therapist at the UPMC Rehabilitation Institute at UPMC Mercy, says Justin\u2019s therapy required a team approach.Physical therapy worked to rebuild his strength, speed, balance, and movement. Occupational therapy focused on the day-to-day tasks Justin needed to learn how to accomplish in his wheelchair. These tasks included safely getting in and out of bed, the shower, and a car, navigating his house, and more.\u201cIt\u2019s not an easy thing, and he really took everything in stride,\u201d says Lockyer, who worked closely with Justin\u2019s physical therapist. \u201cThere\u2019s frustrating days and frustrating times, but he was so positive and took everything in stride and kept his sense of humor about it. He\u2019s a pretty rare kind of patient that we get to work with.\u201dJustin, who stood 6-foot-2 before the crash, was learning how to operate at half that size.\u201cOne of the big things that I had to overcome in the beginning was just learning how to ask people for help. It\u2019s intimidating once you get in the bathroom or the kitchen or something because it\u2019s so much harder. You can\u2019t just bend down and reach into a cabinet anymore.\u201dThe other difficulty Justin dealt with was phantom pain, a condition in which amputees feel severe pain in the limb that is no longer there. Although the exact cause isn\u2019t known, doctors believe it may come from mixed signals in the spinal cord and brain.Justin didn\u2019t feel pain after the crash itself. But the phantom pains brought it to him full force.\u201cIt felt like I was getting tortured,\u201d says Justin, who still feels the sharp pains now but not as often. \u201cIt was absolutely miserable. I\u2019d lay up there in my hospital bed and bury my face in the pillows. I\u2019d just holler and hoot and holler because it hurt so bad, but there\u2019s nothing there.\u201d\u2018It Gave Me a Little Bit of Freedom Back\u2019Justin returned to West Virginia in early December 2018 as he awaited his new prosthetic legs. After receiving them, he came back to Pittsburgh for another round of rehab.The second round of rehab focused on using his new legs, getting used to balancing, and walking.\u201cThe feeling you get from standing up after being in a wheelchair for so long is just crazy,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s some days where you think, \u2018I\u2019m never going to walk again. This is hard.\u2019 And there\u2019s times that you want to stop, but you can\u2019t.\u201d\u201cThat first standing up alone was a big thing. And (my doctor) was like, \u2018All right, take it easy. Don\u2019t push yourself.\u2019 But I was like, \u2018I want to walk. Slowly, like a baby giraffe it looked like, but I\u2019m wobbling down through these bars and taking my first steps. The feeling of that was amazing. It gave me a little bit of freedom back.\u201dJustin\u2019s prosthetics presented another challenge because they include computer processors in the knees and ankles to help him adjust while balancing and walking, Lockyer says. Justin needed to learn how to use those.As his rehab progressed, Justin steadily increased his prosthetic \u201cwear time\u201d \u2013 how long he spent in them each day. It started at an hour and kept increasing.\u201cEvery time I would go to therapy, I could see a difference,\u201d he says, \u201cand each time I would leave, I would be able to tell a difference from the last time.\u201dJustin\u2019s positivity stood out to the rehab specialists. He made it his goal to not set limits for himself.Lockyer called him \u201cone of the most special patients I\u2019ve worked with.\u201d\u201cI get emotional just talking about it,\u201d she says. \u201cA patient like Justin, to be a part of his journey and help him achieve his goals, it\u2019s why I do what I do. It was just an incredible experience, and I felt lucky to be able to work with him. He did everything we asked of him.\u201dShe continues, \u201cIt\u2019s not easy. It\u2019s a physically grueling process to walk with prosthetics \u2026 and he was incredible. Everything we threw at him, every challenge we gave him, he just said yes and went with it. I couldn\u2019t ask for a better patient.\u201dIn mid-April, just six months after his amputations, Justin walked out of UPMC using only a walker. Lockyer says it caused tears among the rehab team because of the overall emotional journey.\u201cI\u2019m so proud,\u201d Jessica says. \u201cHe\u2019s had a positive attitude and a positive outlook the whole time. I can\u2019t believe how positive he has been this whole time.\u201d\u2018I Can Do Anything That I Could Do Before\u2019One question still mystifies Justin: why the crash happened in the first place.\u201cThat\u2019s one of the hardest parts, is just trying to wrap your mind around why this happened,\u201d Justin says. \u201cI trained for 10 years of my life trying to be a better firefighter, constantly training, 10 years of work and dedication. It was gone in 30 seconds.\u201dJustin is trying to turn his negative event into a positive. He still is volunteering at his home fire department, helping in training and around the station. He also plans to start a foundation, with his first goal to buy safety vests for the firefighters in the seven departments in his county.His ultimate goal is to raise awareness for road safety, showing people the consequences of careless driving.\u201cI don\u2019t want to see anybody else go through this,\u201d Justin says. \u201cI really want to help people to pay attention while they\u2019re driving.\u201dHe also wants to show people that losing his legs doesn\u2019t mean losing his life. He considers himself lucky \u2013 he believes if his instincts didn\u2019t cause him to jump before getting hit, the crash would have killed him.An avid outdoorsman before the crash, Justin isn\u2019t letting his prosthetics slow him down.\u201cI can do anything that I could do before,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve already been kayaking, rode four-wheelers. You\u2019ve got to learn how to do stuff differently. After the accident, I had to relearn to live. It\u2019s not the fact that you can\u2019t do something. It\u2019s the fact that you just have to figure out how to do it.\u201dEditor's Note: This video was originally published on March 5, 2020, and was last reviewed on April 26, 2022."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2020","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"03","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/\/03\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Ryan Shazier’s 50 Phenoms: Man Pushes Forward After Losing Legs in Crash","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/03\/justin-story-50ph\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]