Jesse (left), Shannon and Brigitte Elledge enjoy a sunset at Boomer Lake.

     July 27, 1999, began as a normal day for Shannon Elledge. He went through his normal routine of work and was looking forward to a softball game that night. That evening, however, Elledge's life — his wife, his new baby girl, his job and furthering his education at Oklahoma State University — was put on hold.
     Monday night's softball game began as any other; it was the Spare Tires versus the Simons. In the third inning, Elledge's hit landed him on first. Elledge waited for his teammate to send him to second, not knowing what was in store.
      As the batter hit to the short stop, Elledge took off for second base. The second baseman received the ball from the shortstop, touched the bag and went to turn a double play, but as he threw to first, the ball was slightly off target and hit Elledge on the right side of the head. When he was hit with the ball, he was only about five feet from second base.
     "He was knocked down instantly," said Tim Ruckman, coach of the Spare Tires. "Shannon screamed, yelled and rolled on the ground while holding his head.
     "It took about three to four minutes for the players on the other team, who happened to be emergency medical technicians, to calm Shannon and get him to relax," Ruckman said.
     When Elledge finally stood up, he asked, "Am I safe?"
     When he was told he was out, he walked off the field and sat in the dugout. After a couple of innings, he informed Coach Ruckman he was ready to play again. The coach suggested he sit out the rest of the game, because he still had a headache.
     Later that evening, Elledge's head still hurt so he decided to go to the hospital. Because he showed no signs of a serious head injury, the doctors set up an appointment with an ear specialist in case of damage to the eardrum. Elledge was sent home with some pain medication. Around 2:30 a.m. he began vomiting and stumbling around the house. He knew he had to get to the hospital. He tried dialing 911 but realized he had lost his senses and could not dial the phone.
     "My brain was not communicating with my body," Elledge said.
      He said he felt as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff and falling.
      His wife, Brigitte, called Ken Bosma, a friend, to come and take Elledge to the hospital. Bosma said Elledge was sitting in the kitchen incoherent and unresponsive when he arrived.
     Bosma carried him out to his pickup and drove him to the hospital. Once at the hospital, Bosma began describing Elledge's symptoms to the doctor, who immediately began treating him.
     After Elledge was stabilized, he was transported by medi-flight to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa where he underwent immediate surgery for a blood clot on his brain. The blood clot, which was one half-inch thick and the size of a softball, was compressing his brain.
     After surgery, Elledge's brain returned to normal almost immediately, however, he did not wake up. Doctors informed family and friends that Elledge was in a coma, and they were not sure of the outcome. He was in the intensive care unit for a week. While he was in critical condition, doctors informed Elledge's family that the outcome could go either way. All that was left to do was wait and pray.
     "One of the hardest things about Shannon's accident was not knowing what to expect from his recovery and no one being able to tell me for sure," said Brigitte     Elledge, who at the time of the accident was a new mother. For six weeks Elledge had been caring for both his wife and 6-week-old daughter, Jesse.
     Brigitte Elledge had always been the kind of person who did not rely on others. Although she still did not want to depend on others, she realized that with her husband in a coma she had no other choice. One of the things she said she learned after the accident was that she has to be able to trust in God and in herself.
     "Sadly, you have to think ahead to what would happen if you lost your spouse," she said. "Every day is precious, and you have to treat it like it's your last."
     Elledge was in a coma for about two weeks, partly from drugs and partly from the injury. Doctors had to keep him on coma-inducing drugs because he was getting upset trying to wake up and respond when people would talk to him. Slowly they brought him off the medication, but he didn't respond as they had hoped. He stayed in a coma a few more days after the medication was discontinued.
     Once awake, Elledge's left side was unresponsive, and he had little to no control of his arm or leg. He spent two months in rehabilitation trying to get his left side to work
   "One of the hardest things about what happened was that I lost over a month with Jesse," Elledge said. "She was six weeks old when this happened, so I missed out on some development."
     For months after the accident, Elledge was still not able to hold his daughter.
     "I wasn't confident that I could hold her, but eventually they integrated holding Jesse into my rehab," Elledge said.
     During rehabilitation, Elledge said the schedule wore him out.
     "I had aggressive therapists. They really pushed me to do things I was not capable of doing," he said.
     Not only did he have to overcome trying to use his left side again, but he also had to let his body heal so he could eat solid food and talk. He had a weak larynx because doctors had to give him a tracheotomy to help him breathe.
     One of Elledge's goals is to get his physical ability back. While in the coma, he lost 34 pounds. As a lieutenant in the Army National Guard, he has a physically demanding job, and he wants to get back to his former level of performance and finish his military career.
     Luckily, because the accident occurred during the summer, Elledge did not miss any classes.
     He said he is thankful that he did not lose any ground while trying to earn his master's degree in environmental science.
     Elledge said since he had already invested two semesters of work into the program, it would be good to finish. In addition, a master's degree is more beneficial for the field in which Elledge plans to work.

Shannon (left) and Brigitte Elledge teach their daughter, Jesse, how to play softball while on a vist to Boomer Lake in Stillwater.
(Photos by Erica Cook)