Trooper Wright, co-captain of the Morehead High School Panthers football team, has also been a varsity basketball player and leader in the school's chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Susan Spear
EDEN -- When a stream of IV painkiller ran dry two nights after his amputation, Trooper Wright, 16, felt a deep calm instead of the blinding discomfort you'd expect. He'd been transported to a dream so profound it sustains him today.
"I dreamed that night that I was on a pond out in our field where the accident happened. I was in a boat with Jesus, and Jesus was in front of me. He stuck his hand out, lifted me and got me out of the boat, and we walked on the water together," said Trooper, who lost his left lower arm due to traumatic injuries sustained in a Nov. 11 UTV rollover.
Trooper, co-captain of the Morehead High School varsity football team, gathered Tuesday with his mom and dad, Darren and Karen Wright, at Osborne Baptist Church, to discuss his healing and path forward.
The word "thankful" would be an understatement in the Wright family's holiday vocabulary this year.
Darren Wright, a retired state trooper, marveled from a cozy room in the family's church about his son's stoicism just after the accident that fall afternoon. Wright had been preparing to pressure wash the family's home, set on farmland just west of Eden. "I heard it, so I started running toward them," Wright said of the crash. His only son and Morehead's other football co-captain, Brock Blizzard, had been riding the family side-by-side with a third pal about 100 yards from the house when Trooper, who was driving, lost control and the UTV rolled. The impact threw Brock from the vehicle and crushed Trooper's arm.
"It was something I've done in the side-by-side 100 times -- and I wasn't going insanely fast, but this time, it flipped over," Trooper said, lamenting the fact that he did not wear his seat belt that day.
Seasoned from seeing decades of traffic accidents as a highway patrolman, Wright said: "I was prepared to see a compound fracture, but it was much worse. Trained in life-saving techniques, Wright kept his son talking, summoned first responders by phone and stayed focused, he said.
"Trooper never lost consciousness. We covered his arm so he didn't have to see it," Wright said, fighting back tears.
"He never shed a tear. He is quite an amazing young man. You know, I'm supposed to be the tough one, but he's the tough one," Wright said, explaining Trooper further managed to lift his own mangled arm in order to be loaded onto the medical helicopter that airlifted him to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem for care.
Trooper's mom, a sixth-grade teacher at Western Rockingham Elementary School in Madison, was home Nov. 11 and realized there was an emergency only when she heard sirens and saw flashing lights flood her road.
"As I came upon the scene, my husband said not to let me come over to him. I trust my husband, but at the same time, the uncertainty of all of it was really hard," Karen Wright said. "All I could do was cry out, 'Help me, Jesus.' But I honestly never thought I was going to lose Trooper. I had a sense that Jesus was right there."
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Spirituality is central to the Wright family. Trooper, in fact, is leader of Morehead High's chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes. On Tuesday, he sported a pink shirt with the spiritual logo, "One Way," which he and his fellow football players wear beneath their jerseys.
And "Troop," as he's known by family and friends, says he believes that "God has a plan" for him to use his injury to "reach a lot of people."
"I believe I'm still here because God has a really good purpose for me," he said. "Sports can define people, but God has something bigger than sports for me," said Trooper, who has his sights on a career in mission work or motivational speaking and hopes to still have a shot at a college football run.
He's not back at school yet, but is continuing an online Spanish class and visiting the Morehead campus periodically, Trooper said, acknowledging he's had some challenges.
"There've been a few rough patches, and stuff, but I haven't gotten too down," he said, adding that he's fortified by a large group of friends and mentors through Osborn Baptist and school athletics. He also has the phone numbers of fellow amputees who are willing to talk about the road ahead when the time is right, Trooper said.
Physical pain comes occasionally, he concedes. "My (left) tricep area hurts sometimes when I move it."
And the sensation of "electric shocks" is something he's learning to deal with, Trooper said with an impish grin.
Called "phantom limb pains," the jolts stem from the body's neurological memory of a limb once there. Nerve endings at the amputation site continue to send pain signals to the brain after a limb is removed. And the symptom can persist for weeks, months or years, researchers say.
For now, Trooper says he's not sure he wants to wear a prosthesis. "We've talked about it. At first I was like, I don't want a prosthetic at all. I think it's God's plan. So I think I might just leave it."
As for sports, "I'll return to the field," Trooper said, noting his other sport, varsity basketball, may be a bigger challenge without his left lower arm.
"But I still have a passion for both."
Thanksgiving will be a time for restoration, the family said. "We'll play what we call the Turkey Bowl," Trooper's dad said of a touch football game that's become a tradition. And Trooper's sisters, Taylor, 30, and Jordan, 29, will be around for food and festivities.
"We are so lucky. There were angels present that day," Wright said. Trooper's mom added: "And if anyone ever doubts God exists, you can't help but see what he does through this."
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@SpearSusie_RCN
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