When TJ Scanlon fell down a concrete stairwell in March 2016, the chance of him making it to the hospital alive was slim.
For two days, the engineer lay in a pool of his own blood in absolutely freezing temperatures in Baltimore, Maryland.
By the time he was finally found, Scanlon had already been dead for about 90 minutes, doctors say.
According to The Daily Mail, Scanlon suffered cardiac arrest while he was being airlifted to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma in Baltimore.
Now, more than a year later, medical experts are in absolute shock that Scanlon is actually on the road to recovery.
Although he has miraculously regained full cognitive functions, the accident did leave Scanlon paralyzed from the chest down, and he also lost his leg.
While it has been a year since the accident, Scanlon can still remember what he was doing right before the life-changing fall.
According to The Daily Mail, Scanlon was returning home from a birthday party when his neighbor’s dog suddenly startled him so much that he plummeted over a rail, down a flight of stairs.
After ending up on a concrete landing, Scanlon was in so much pain and he was so cold that he couldn’t call for help.
“I don't remember being down there at all. I was unresponsive. I was in pretty rough shape. My eyes were rolling back in my head and I was moaning,” he recalled. “My body was turning different colors because I was going into hypothermia.”
Eventually, one of Scanlon’s roommates found him, but he was barely hanging on by a thread at that point.
Emergency medics later revealed that Scanlon had broken a vertebra in his neck, suffered kidney and lung failure, and his limbs were turning black due to frostbite and lack of circulation, according to The Daily Mail.
“I coded in the helicopter. While they were wheeling me in, they had to keep pumping on my chest,” Scanlon said. “My body was in hypothermia at 84 degrees so they used ECMO therapy to warm me up until they could see if I had vitals.”
The fact that Scanlon survived the fall itself is already a miracle, but doctors say seeing Scanlon recover without permanent brain damage is something that’s almost unheard of.
“To be found two days later, as well as being outside, plus the number of injuries he had. … It’s extraordinary he survived that,” Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the medical director of spinal cord injury at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital where Scanlon recovered, said.
Aside from the work he’s been doing nonstop to rehabilitate his body and mind, Scanlon says his positive attitude is what helps him move forward.
“When I woke up in the hospital, I didn't know what was going to happen. It's been a long year but a good year,” he said. “I took it as a challenge. There was a line drawn for me in what I could achieve and I wanted to see how far I could take it.”
