The flutter of an eyelash or wiggle of a toe were the signs the parents of Davin Rowland desperately needed to tell them their son was still here with them. A rush of emotion came over them as their tall, blonde 20-year-old emerged from a weeks-long coma after the work truck in which he had been riding shotgun collided with an 18-wheeler on a Mississippi highway.
“God orchestrated” a miracle, says his mom, Jennifer Rowland, 46, recalling how a battalion of rescuers pulled up in time with the powerful metal cutters needed to free their son from the cage of twisted metal in the aftermath. And a flight crew arrived with the needed medicine to keep the motorists alive.
The dread call rang on Dec. 1, 2023.
Jennifer, a nurse, received the call from Davin’s boss and immediately called her husband David. He drove her next door to Memphis’ Elvis Presley Trauma Center where they awaited every parent’s worst nightmare as the ambulance rushed in with their son.
Davin’s father was “shocked, concerned” and “went into immediate prayer,” he told The Epoch Times.
“I just panicked,” Jennifer said. “It’s the worst call you want to receive as a parent.”
From the doctor who met them in the small waiting room, the term “devastating neurological injury” was echoed ad nauseum. Its DAI grade III classification meant the injury went down to the brainstem. His coma was not medically induced but caused by the collision, and he sustained a traumatic brain injury. Their worst fear was uttered: that oxygen had been cut to his brain, implying irreversible brain damage.
“There’s nothing we can do,” the doctors repeatedly told the parents, who refused to accept that all hope was lost; they wanted to hear it from the attendant surgeon, not the resident. For a nurse who happens to be a Christian, hearing that kind of news created a battle inside Jennifer’s mind.
“God is going to heal him,” she firmly believed.
It took 24 hours. The Rowlands and their Christian community had organized prayers for Davin to recover. And then the doctors came in and removed the worst prognosis they had issued one day earlier. They had “no evidence” Davin had experienced oxygen deprivation to his brain, David said, adding that the injuries were limited to neurological damage, which hard work, determination, and resilience could repair.
“It just takes time,” he said.
The news the doctors delivered that day was the miracle they had prayed for, he said.
“I call it a supernatural experience,” Jennifer said.
Davin suffered a fractured mandible that was wired back together though no broken bones. Time would heal his wounds.
The one question still lingering was: when would he wake from his coma? As it was not medically induced, the doctors had no idea how long. The parents commanded him to wiggle a toe or blink an eyelid, but when he did, the doctors called it “reflexes.”
“No, that’s not a reflex, that’s him,” Jennifer said. “I know they are trained to try to not speak too hopeful in case something doesn’t happen. They don’t want to give false hope.
“I think the medical field should give some glimmer of hope, some families need that.”
The waiting game ended after two and a half weeks. Davin obliged his parents’ request and gave them a thumbs up and they knew he had finally come to. Christmas was just days away.
He would not come home for the holidays but spent the next five months graduating from wheelchair to walker to cane, while gathering the scattered filing cabinet of his memories to be reorganized, aided by therapists who showed him pictures of his life, hoping to spark memories.
Five days a week, Davin partook in physical therapy at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, relearning to walk and awakening his muscle memory.
“They had two people with his arms wrapped around their necks, walking him,” Jennifer said. “They actually had to move his legs and walk, pick up his legs and walk.”
Up and down the hall, up and down the stairs, assisted on and off the treadmill daily. Repeat. Step by step, Davin regained the use of his body.
The long weeks in the hospital were busy, filled with his grueling routine of learning to brush his teeth, use the bathroom, wash, and eat on his own. Through it all, his positivity shone.
“His attitude has been very impressive and inspiring,” his mom said.
He said his coping mechanism for gloom was to “pray.”
After four weeks, Davin took his first wobbly steps on his own.
“That was big,” Jennifer said.
Davin left the hospital in a walker, returning home on May 1. “Very emotional that day,” his mom said.
They drove the six hours home from Atlanta to Mississippi, where a party awaited with his girlfriend and a big sign on the front lawn welcoming Davin home.
When he arrived home and saw his prized truck again, “he smiled so big,” Jennifer said.
Shortly thereafter he used a cane. Today he walks alone. His personality after waking from his coma started out very flat, his mom said, but now he is regaining some inflection and cracking jokes. Soon, he and his family went to a pond on their property, and he caught a huge bass.
Today, the doctors say Davin will finish healing in a few months; whatever stage he reaches may be the best he can hope for. Holding out hope, his mother says they are going to keep praying: “We’re just believing that God can heal him no matter how long it takes.”
Asked if God had any hand in saving him, Davin answered, “Majorly, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Him.”
