Jack Fletcher looking to the future after July accident

When Kelly Fletcher talks about her son Jack Fletcher’s personality just five months after the car accident that left him with traumatic brain injury, she says  he “goes to bed scheming and wakes up beaming.”

“He’s got a great attitude,” Kelly said. “He loves spending time with his family and his friends. He’s learning to adapt. He can’t see out of his right eye, so he’s had to learn to adapt to that, he also has an injury that causes problems with his (right) hand. He’s always happy when he’s around people.”

No matter how many challenges he’s had to face, 19-year-old Jack, who came close to losing his life just that short time ago, is setting goals and looking forward to the future.

“Being a firefighter isn’t too far out there for me,” Jack said. “Or maybe being a fire chaplain. God gave me a second chance.”

On July 30, Jack was driving home from Central Oregon to surprise his mom, dad John and sister Emma with an unplanned visit. A Prairie High School graduate and a graduate of the Clark County Fire & Rescue Fire Cadet Program, Jack was just six weeks into a fire training program with Crook County Fire & Rescue in Prineville, OR. However, as Jack was heading home that day, a Ford pickup truck crossed the center line of Highway 26 and crashed head on into Jack’s small Subaru wagon.

Jack was taken to OHSU and his mom and dad rushed there to find out the extent of his injuries, which included a traumatic brain injury, along with multiple broken bones and facial fractures. Those first few hours that doctors spent stabilizing Jack were crucial, and his mom and dad weren’t sure if he was going to survive.

Now, roughly five months after the accident, Jack has been making leaps and bounds in his recovery and in all areas of his life. Recently, Dean Lange, B Shift battalion chief with Clark County Fire & Rescue, and other fire personnel came up with the idea of having Jack work at the station as a special volunteer with the Clark County Fire & Rescue Volunteer Program.

Jack recently just completed his fourth volunteer shift and is able to do things like go on ride alongs, go over parts and tools on the engines and more.

“It’s awesome,” Jack said of being able to work the shifts. “It’s really cool. I help them out, do whatever they need me to do.”

“This opportunity they’ve created has been great therapy for him,” Kelly said. “He wants to help others and being involved with fire service enables him to do that.”

“It’s really therapy for us, too,” Lange said. “We’re getting out of it everything we’re putting into it.”

Even though Jack can sometimes get tired easily because of his injuries from the accident, he’s been able to work long hours during his shifts, working about 12 hours during his last one.

Lange said Jack is given tasks to do during his shifts based on his abilities. Right now, he is able to ride out with fire personnel and observe, but, as things continue to progress, Lange said he is hopeful Jack will be able to start helping with patient care.

“I would never put a lid on what this kid can do,” Lange said. “Here’s a kid, he didn’t do anything wrong and then something like this (the accident) happens. It seems so unfair. This kid was going to make it. It’s not easy to get on with the fire department, he had a good career ahead of him.”

Just wanting to be ‘normal’

When Jack had his first volunteer shift at the station, Lange said some of the other guys were nervous because they didn’t know what to expect. Lange told them just to treat Jack like normal, like they would treat any other “new” volunteer. Kelly said her son really does just want to feel normal.

“Every day, the guys go to the store to get food and they usually make the ‘new’ guy carry all of it,” Lange said, laughing. “I was there one day and I see Jack carrying all of these bags of food. They’re definitely doing a good job of treating him like normal.”

Currently, Jack has been working a volunteer shift about once every two weeks or so, according to Kelly. He’s also only been doing the B Shift right now.

“It makes me feel a lot more normal, I think it’s really good occupational therapy for me,” Jack said. “All of the guys are really great.”

Colby Gratzer, a firefighter/EMT who has worked with Jack during some of his shifts, said he enjoys having Jack on his shift and that he is amazed at the progress he has made over the past several months.

“When we first heard he was going to be coming to our shift, I immediately texted my battalion chief and told him I would love for Jack to ride out with me,” Gratzer said. “I wasn’t sure how things would be, but it was great and I called Chief Lange and told him it was great and that Jack could ride out with me any time. He has such a great sense of humor. We don’t have to skirt around the fact that he was in a big car accident, he openly talks about the accident and even jokes about it sometimes.”

Gratzer said he was shocked to see how far Jack had come considering the amount of trauma he went through during the accident and during recovery. He said he treats Jack just like he would any other “new” volunteer, although he said Jack is actually a bit further along than a day-one volunteer because he still remembers a lot of what he learned through the Fire Cadet Program.

At the beginning of Jack’s shifts, Gratzer said they sit down and come up with a list of things Jack can do and a list of what they need done. During his first couple of shifts, Jack worked going over the fire engine, noting where things are. He goes through the cabinets and memorizes the location of all the different tools and, if he doesn’t recognize something or remember where something is, he writes it down in a notebook that he carries in his shirt.

“I think Jack is going to reach a point where he’s able to be an asset in what we call the ‘hot zone,’ the working zone,” Gratzer said. “With the advancements he’s made since the accident, I don’t think there’s any reason that Jack isn’t going to make a huge recovery.”

Day-to-day life

Other than his involvement with the fire program, Jack has continued to make advancements in other areas of his life as well.

Kelly said his traumatic brain injury has progressed well, and he’s also still currently doing outpatient therapy for speech and short-term memory. He’s been running regularly and usually runs about three miles.

Recently, Jack said he took a trip to White Salmon to try out snowshoeing, which he said he absolutely loved since he used to really enjoy snowboarding when he was younger.

“I think next, if my parents let me, I might try cross-country skiing,” he said.

Since recovering from the accident, Jack said one of the best things was being able to go home and see all the support he’s had from family, friends and the community. Also, he said he got to go to Chicago for a rugby match, excitedly saying he was able to give a fist bump to his rugby hero.

As far as challenges go, Jack said his memory has probably been the biggest challenge since the accident, along with just figuring out what’s next for himself.

Kelly also said Jack has been spending a lot of time with the Clark County Fire & Rescue fire chaplain, who lends a religious hand to personnel and their families. He also enjoys spending time with his family and Kelly said it’s a job in itself trying to find ways to keep Jack busy, as he always wants to be doing something.

“He wants to go, go, go,” she said. “He’s very happy when he’s around people. He even wants to go see the guy who hit him. He’s told us he wants to go see him and tell him that he forgives him.”

“I’m going to go there and tell him I forgive him for what he did,” Jack said. “In the Bible, it says that in order to be forgiven, we need to forgive. I would definitely rather be in my shoes than his shoes.”