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A year ago, Trey Echols was a senior at Lee-Davis High School

Published: February 03, 2010
By Melody Kinser

A year ago, Trey Echols was a senior at Lee-Davis High School, looking forward to graduation and pursuing a career in law enforcement. But that all changed in the early morning hours of Feb. 7, when an accident left the then-18-year-old with brain trauma.

On Thursday, Trey and his aunt, Melanie Ledbetter, talked about the past year and the remarkable journey he has made. The next day, he received his diploma from Lee-Davis after returning to school in September to resume credit work toward graduation.

About 4 a.m. on Feb. 7, 2009, Trey and friends Steven Young and Josh Kramer were traveling on Interstate 295 around the Route 5 exit. “He was driving,” Melanie said, “and the other two boys were sleeping.” She said there is speculation that “Trey fell asleep at the wheel, went off the road, woke up and tried to correct what was going on. Thea (Chevrolet) Blazer flipped over the guardrail and slipped down into trees and woods down at the bottom.”

“I don’t remember any of it,” Trey said.

Trey’s passengers “walked away from it — didn’t even need medical attention,” his aunt said.

He was taken to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, where, Melanie said, “he was immediately diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury.” What had happened to his brain is known as a diffuse axonal injury, “similar to Shaken Baby Syndrome,” she said. “The brain is jostled inside the brain.” Trey suffered damage to the surface of his brain, as well as brain stem. He was placed on a respiratory and had a tracheotomy. He had a collapsed lung, but no bones were broken. Melanie said he did have some facial fractures, but they were not severe. They were told that his age was to his advantage — “and that’s what he had going for him at the time of his recovery.”

At the time of the accident, Melanie said they didn’t know if Trey would wake up. “The brain cannot be predicted.” And then he slowly started emerging. “As complicated as it is,” she said, “the brain knows when it needs to start making certain things happen.”

In the wreck, Trey had been halfway ejected from the driver’s side window, “with him hanging out and then the whole vehicle and he went into a tree,” Melanie said. “He was kind of crushed in that whole mangled mess.”

The right side of his head suffered the worst injury. “It just looked like you took the side of his head and slammed it up against something.”

Steven, his best friend, was the first to reach him. Trey wasn’t breathing, so Steven shook him. “Trey gasped and started breathing,” Melanie said.

One of his friends made the call to 911. Emergency personnel faced a “fairly lengthy evacuation getting him out of the Blazer,” Melanie said.

Trey has accomplished in a year’s time what had been predicted to take two. “We were told it could take two years,” Melanie said. “At the end of two years, what you have is what you’re gonna have.” Trey, however, had another plan. He has recovered “way ahead of schedule.” When he returned to the classroom last fall, his aunt said he wasn’t even speaking.

Today, he is walking, talking and progressing. He still takes physical therapy, because he continues to have limited use of his right hand — and he is right-handed. The rehab is outpatient and Melanie said Trey is expected “to be in some type of rehab probably for the rest of this year.”

He has a “never gonna give up” attitude, because of his mother Kathy and half-brother George who were killed in 1997. Two months before his accident, Trey got a tattoo in memory of his mom and half-brother.

These days, Trey is looking to the future and attending the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fishersville. “They can help me figure it out,” Trey said about his career options.

Melanie said it is “a huge rehabilitation center with work programs and it’s geared a lot toward the younger children who can’t get into the working world because of some type of disability. They just pretty much find out what their goals and their interests are and steer them into that kind of work. He can live there, it’s like it’s own little community.”

Religion is a big part of Trey’s life, as well as that of his family, which includes his uncle Robbie and cousin Summer. They make their home in Mechanicsville and attend the Pole Green Church of Christ. Melanie said Trey “is an active baptized member and actually sang at church the Sunday before the accident.”

Throughout the ordeal, they have used the theme “Pray for Trey.” Within two weeks of his accident, the community started raising funds to help with medical expenses. The school sponsored a benefit basketball game and Trey has “Go for Gold” bracelets and t-shirts. “It really touched everybody to get involved as a Christian community,” Melanie said.

“We probably would have been lost without our faith, our church and just the whole community,” she said.

For more information on Trey, go to http://www.caringbridge.org. The Web site is dedicated to traumatic injuries. Melanie said Trey’s page, treyechols, has journal entries and photos.

An account, Pray for Trey, has been set up at Village Bank in Mechanicsville. Donations are used for medical expenses.

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