ick Housley can’t remember much about the cycling accident in Greenville, S.C., that derailed his ambitions to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games.
What he does remember, after taking a blow to the head, is seeing blood.
“I remember opening my eyes, seeing the pool of blood, and not really moving,” said Housley, who is graduating with a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from the Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing & Health Professions. “Then, a short while later, I heard people calling for help.”
He was taken to a local trauma center where medical staff found he had suffered a subdural hematoma—bleeding of the brain—on the right side of his head. He’d also fractured his lower jaw in eight places.
Surgeons put his face back together with scalpels and screws, and wired his jaw shut for eight weeks, but physical therapists helped get his body moving again while his brain healed from the trauma.
“I was fascinated with how the brain can recover,” Housley said. “It’s so delicate, but it’s also so robust.”
Before the accident, he had considered going to medical school. But looking at his future, the therapists’ hands-on, personable approach helped push him toward a career in physical therapy.
“With the amount of time that you spend with people, you get to understand the person, where they come from and what types of things you can actually do to help them,” he said.
That sense of personal connection was part of what attracted him to Georgia State, where his admission interview struck a chord.
“It was a conversation, and you could tell that people seem to have your best interest at heart,” Housley said. “After the first question, the professor said, ‘You know what, Nick? We’ll just talk.’”
Problems retaining information haven’t set him back. He’s just pushed himself to study harder, he said, like an endurance athlete would. This fall, he’ll be heading to Georgia Tech to pursue a Ph.D. in the School of Applied Physiology, researching the changes that occur after nervous system damage as well as the inner workings of the mechanisms behind rehabilitation.
—Jeremy Craig