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Student fights injury with hope
 Media Credit: Jessica Tonsfeldt SCSU senior Nate Kells spends time doing rehabilitation therapy and arm exercises by lifting weights at the St. Cloud Hospital. An October car accident left Kells paralyzed from the waist down.
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Nate Kells lies in a hospital bed, unable to move his legs, knowing that there’s a chance he may never walk again.
Kells, a senior, mass communications major and former SCSU homecoming king, was injured in a car accident last month. The accident left him unable to walk.
Nate fell asleep at the wheel with his car set on cruise control at 60 m.p.h. When he awoke, he was in a ditch and heading toward the approach to a driveway.
“I’ve gone in the ditch before so I didn’t think anything was going to happen,” Kells said. “I thought I could steer myself out of it.”
He managed to swerve, hitting the low end of the approach. The car, still on cruise, flew 10-15 feet into the air.
When it landed, Kells’ legs went numb.
“They just felt really fat. Well, maybe they are anyhow,” he said with a laugh, “but they felt really heavy.”
Although his car’s engine had stopped, momentum kept the car rolling. Unable to press the brake with his feet, Kells steered around trees until the car finally stopped in a yard.
“I was just freaking out,” he said. “I had one hand on the wheel and one hand on the door. I was holding myself up off the seat because my back hurt so bad.”
After the ambulances arrived, rescue crews carefully removed Kells through the top of his car.
Kells was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he went through an eight-hour surgery performed by eight doctors.
He had an incomplete fracture of his T-11, T-12 and L-1 vertebrae. Doctors have no way of knowing if he will regain full use of his legs.
Recovery
Kells is now at St. Cloud Hospital. His room is full of handheld video games, stuffed animals, pictures of family and friends, and encouraging words from many.
“I’m just looking for other things that I can hold onto because I know I really want to walk,” Kells said. “But what do I need to do to get there?”
Kells goes to physical therapy all day, every day. He cannot move his body from the waist down, but has regained some feeling in his thighs and ankles. Therapists keep his muscles flexible with a variety of exercises. In one, he is strapped into an elliptical running machine. When he pushes the arm pieces, his legs are automatically moved as if he is walking.
“We’re thinking that I will definitely be able to walk with braces around the house, short distances,” he said.
Support
Sitting on a shelf in the corner of Kells’ hospital room is a red, tin bucket filled with get well cards from family, friends and even strangers.
“They (strangers) have to explain who they are,” he said. “They’ve heard about it and sent cards. So, it’s like if they wrote me then I have to walk. They’re praying for me; I gotta do it.”
In addition to visits from family, friends and his fiance, senior Jessica Tonsfeldt, Kells has nuns from all over the nation praying for him.
“My great aunt is a nun and she sent out a mass e-mail to convents across the country,” he said, laughing.
Another SCSU student who went through something similar has also helped Kells stay optimistic. Josh Holly, also a senior, was in an accident which left him paralyzed from the chest down. He was told he would never walk again, but three years later, he is walking.
“I look at him and say, ‘Well, if he had no chance of walking, and I have feeling to my ankles, at least, then if that’s what I need then that’s what I got to do,’” Kells said.
Changing Goals
Kells and Tonsfeldt had planned to move to either Boston or San Diego after they both graduate this spring. Kells is hoping he will still be able to graduate, but he may not want to move right away.
“I really need to concentrate on getting back on my feet first,” he said.
Moving would require switching therapists.
“A lot of therapy is trusting your therapist,” he said. “They’ll stand behind you or beside you and you have to trust that they’re going to be there.”
Kells will still be able to have a career in public relations or decorating if he is wheelchair bound.
He will be in the hospital for a few more weeks before he begins out-patient therapy. Right now, going to physical therapy is more important than finishing school.
“I only have so much time to heal and start walking again,” he said. “School I can finish whenever.”
Missing Out
Kells misses being busy with normal, everyday tasks.
“I miss work, which is strange,” he said of the floral shop where he works part time.
He also misses his duties as president of the SCSU chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA).
“I miss leaving the house early and coming home really late,” he added.
Why me?
When an accident like this happens people often begin to ask “Why me?”
“My pastor came up and said, ‘Don’t ask that question. It’s cosmic and you’ll never get an answer,’” Kells said. “Today my therapist said it probably is good not to ask that question, but that I will get an answer.”
Kells said his therapist also explained that sometimes people start on the wrong track. They may not find out for a while, but there is a reason for what has happened.
“I had a goal, I know where I’m going and I still do,” Kells said, “but there must be some kind of an answer and I don’t think I’m going to get it right away.”
Kells’ younger brother was also involved in a car accident. The Kells family has had to pull together to support two injured sons.
“I know I’ll be walking,” Kells said, “but if I have to spend quite a bit of time in a wheelchair, I don’t think it’ll be the worst thing.”
“He’s determined,” said his mother Nancy, “and I think he’ll pull it off. If anybody can, he will.”
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