WILMINGTON, N.C. — Grant Smith knows all about strength — not just because he was a standout baseball player in college, but because of what he’s had to overcome.
“Before my accident, I was enjoying life and college and playing baseball, enjoying the Charleston weather and the beaches, and good friends and teammates, and having a good time,” Smith said.
All that was cut short when he dove off a boat three years ago. It’s something he’d done countless times before, only this time, something went wrong.
“I just woke up on the beach,” Smith recalled, “And just remember kind of going into that white light and then everything kind of blacked out.”
He broke his spine, his lungs collapsed, and he had to be resuscitated multiple times. After months of physical, occupational, and speech therapies, he felt ready to move out of his parents’ house.
He now works as a project manager for Gray Interiors in Wilmington.
Paws4People, a nonprofit based in Wilmington that places assistance dogs with individuals with disabilities, also connected him with a service dog, Utah, who Grant says has been a big help to him both physically and emotionally.
“I got Utah, and we started trying to figure it out, we just started getting a ball and playing, and I didn’t know how I was gonna hold it, or how he was gonna give it to me,” Smith said. “But every time he gets it, from the beginning he always brought it to me and literally would have his head pinned against my leg until I took the ball from him.
Smith added it made their relationship just that much better.
He credits his progress to his background as an athlete which trained him to keep pushing himself and to the medical team at Novant Health that stopped at nothing to save his life.
Now, three years later, he reunited with that team for the first time since his accident.
His doctors said that seeing him doing so well when his odds were so low is the best gift they can receive.
“It just gives you a jolt, and you say okay, doing a good job, really working hard and seeing some benefit here,” Timothy Novosel, Trauma Director at Novant Health, said. “And we don’t always see this.”
Without his doctors or his dedication, Smith might not be here today, and he hopes others can learn from his strength.
“Definitely couldn’t do it without people in my corner, and it was a grind, and a lot of hard days, but I was able to thankfully,” Smith said. “Having a sports background of putting my head down and keep pushing forward every day and just trying to do the same thing every day just like everyone else, it’s just a different battle.”
Although Smith’s baseball days may be over, he still stays active. He plays fetch with Utah often, and even went surfing for the first time this summer with the help of his nurses at the Life Rolls On event in July.
