AUSTIN, Texas — It's become a morning routine – getting in a morning run. A routine that, for Kelly Howard, started out as anything but routine.
"I run every day," he said.
However, if you had tried to talk to Howard 10 months ago, it would have been difficult.
"This is the book my wife made me for Christmas," Kelly showed. "She documented everything that happened."
Howard has spent most of the last year in physical therapy at St. David's Rehab Hospital after a crash almost killed him.
"On Memorial Weekend, I was getting off my Harley, I was hit by a car and left there on the side of the road," he said. "You know, I had to learn how to walk again, talk again. I had to learn to acclimate myself back. They said 96% does not make it, and I was in the percentile that made it."
A percentage so low due to the laundry list of injuries he suffered:
- 3 brain bleeds
- 7 broken ribs
- 1 fractured left ankle
- 1 fractured left elbow
- 1 broken left clavicle
- 1 torn left rotator cuff
- 1 torn left bicep
- 1 collapsed left lung
"It took five months of therapy, getting back to what I could do," he said. "It was depressing at times, it was dark, it was lonely, but then my wife by my side, and the supporters that I had."
Now only 10 months later, he's nearing full recovery, allowing him to continue to get up and go to work.
"I made an effort every day. I got up and said, 'I'm gonna do this.' Get out of my head, don't think of the negative, don't think of what happened," he said. "Just think positive."
An attitude that keeps him running daily.
"The therapists would ask me, 'You're doing so good, what are you doing?' I'm running. 'But you're not supposed to yet,' you know, and I said, 'Well I'm doing it,'" he explained.
Doing a routine that 10 months ago seemed impossible.
"They said, 'In your condition, it's amazing what you're able to do,'" he added.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING: