His brain was hurt, but service is his passion
Another one down, Jason Nealey spends many of his days returning trash cans from the roadside. (Deuce Niven, TLT)
By DEUCE NIVEN
tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com
Deborah Connor feared she has lost her son, critically injured in an auto crash nearly two decades ago.
A new father just beginning his adult life, Jason Andrew Nealey was motionless in a hospital bed, machines keeping him alive, the prognosis was grim.
“He had a severe brain injury,” Connor, 60, said standing in the front yard she shares with her son on Lebanon Church Road. “His brain was shredded.”
These days Jason’s days are busy, especially late in the week. He’s made it his business to serve the community as he can, hauling trash cans from the roadsides and returning them to carports, garages, or wherever those living their wish.
Jason shows an enthusiasm for life and displays a service oriented ethic, even though his injury does not allow him to talk with others.
He communicates by text, sometimes just showing his phone to the reporter who showed up unexpectedly, or more long-distance during a follow-up interview for this story.
Why serve as he does?
“I do because to help out my people,” Jason said. “And the Lord said you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
Family, faith
Family is important to Jason, something he demonstrated in the relatively early days following the car crash that could easily have killed him.
After his discharge from a hospital, Jason spent some time in rehabilitation at Premier Living nursing home in Lake Waccamaw. His mother, she recalled, was a near constant presence. Staff their soon realized Jason would likely benefit from specialized care at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta where specialists in brain and spinal cord injury could work with him.
Jason had thrived at Premier Living, with family and other frequent visitors and staff he came to know.
“He hated it,” Deborah said. “At Premier we could bring him home for the weekend. At Shepherd, he would text, ‘Mommy, come get me, I hate it.”
A bright spot during his darkest times was Jason’s daughter, Desiaray Nealey, now a student at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.”
“She was a baby,” Deborah recalled. “It was around Christmas, he had hardly moved and we brought her into the room. He started reaching for her.
“She is his best medicine.”
Look for more on this story in this week’s Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.
