Clyde's story
Clyde Blackburn III had to re-learn how to stand, walk and speak. But more than anything, the 19-year-old from Germantown, Ky., wanted to take to one knee and pop the question.
He can’t remember his car accident. One minute, he was picking up his big sister, Lizzie, and when he blinked, three months had passed. The world had taken a terrifying turn. He was lying in a bed at TriHealth Rehabilitation Hospital. He could barely move or speak.
His girlfriend Grace was there. She told him he’d collided with another car on AA Highway near Maysville, Ky. He’d been airlifted to University of Cincinnati Medical Center, and a month later an ambulance had taken him to Select Specialty Hospital — Northern Kentucky. He’d suffered a traumatic brain injury. The crash had lacerated his internal organs and broke bones in his spine, hip, jaw, chest and arm. He’d been in a medically induced coma, had come down with pneumonia, and needed a tracheotomy and a ventilator to breathe. His family had kept a daily vigil at his bedside.
So had Grace. She and Clyde had met in high school and had been together a little more than a year. They first connected over Foo Fighters tunes. Music is a big deal for Clyde, who plays the trombone and picks out rock songs on an acoustic guitar. And so is Grace. Clyde had a certain hill picked out not far from their hometown that caught a sunset just right. One day soon he planned to take her there and ask for her hand.
In his hospital bed, Clyde remembered his proposal idea, but it was hard to focus on anything. The traumatic brain injury had caused cognitive weaknesses. The broken jaw and time on a ventilator had reduced his voice to a whisper, and he was dependent on a feeding tube for sustenance.
But the biggest blow came later. His family hadn’t wanted to tell him about it at first, but finally Grace let him know. Lizzie, the sister he’d gone to pick up ― of his eight siblings, the one that was “like a twin to me” ― had died in the accident. She was a year older than him. “They were scared I was going to give up on life,” he said.
But he didn’t. Losing Lizzie hurt worse than anything, but he focused on Grace, the question he hoped to ask and the life he prayed lay just ahead.
At TriHealth, an army of nurses, pharmacists and physical, occupational, recreational, speech, respiratory and speech therapists pitched in to help Clyde find his way back. Speech therapists used an Iowa Oral Performance Instrument, a device that looks like a straw with a cap on it to improve lip and tongue strength. It helped Clyde regain his ability to eat solid food. Therapists also used a decibel meter to measure how loudly he could say certain phrases. Every day, they gave him a volume goal – how loud could he be? Clyde was motivated, they said. He needed Grace to hear his question, after all. So, every day, he pushed to make his voice louder.
Occupational therapists taught Clyde to dress himself. He balanced on parallel bars, watching himself in a mirror to make sure the body he was getting used to was positioned the right way. He slowly rebuilt some of the strength he’d lost in his legs. Before long, he was back to going to the bathroom without an entourage of friends, family and therapists.
They gave him word problems to solve to help him overcome the cognitive weaknesses. He played card and board games with a recreation therapist. Moving the game pieces and dealing cards improved his fine motor skills, and thinking through the games helped brush away the cobwebs that had formed in his mind.
As the weeks wore on, Clyde notched milestone after milestone. He stood. At first, his loss of balance and left-side neuro-motor skills made balance and walking problematic. Physical therapists outfitted him with a robotic exoskeleton that looks like a pair of legs propping up a backpack. Clyde slipped into the straps and a cummerbund that held it fast to his midsection and worked on walking.
Exercising with the device turned out to be what was missing – Clyde began to walk further distances and even started striding along without his walker.
The independence he’d lost crept back. He could navigate a kitchen by himself and make small meals. He wasn’t 100% -- he still had hip pain, cognitive difficulties and hadn’t regained all of his strength. But during his five-week stay at TriHealth, his therapists, struck by his motivation and positive attitude, had joined the wide circle of family and friends who came in regularly to cheer him on.
But as far as Clyde was concerned, his job wasn’t finished. One day, he told them he wanted to learn to kneel. “So I can propose the right way,” he explained.
His physical therapist had him climb on a therapy table to ensure his knees were able to withstand his own body weight. She instructed Clyde to hold onto a railing and try shallow lunges to determine his strength, balance and coordination. During each session, he deepened his lunges. A second person stood close by him in case he lost his balance or couldn’t get back up, as he sweated through lunge after lunge.
The kneeling exercises continued after he left TriHealth at the end of 39 days of inpatient care. And then, finally, he did it. It was still a little painful, but Clyde got down on one knee and asked Grace to marry him.
But by then kneeling was all for show – a photo-op for his Aunt Sarah who wanted to capture it for a frame on the mantle.
Clyde already had his answer. During his time at TriHealth, Grace was there with him to celebrate each step. The question was burning inside of him. Finally, one day, when Grace was visiting and the couple was on the phone with his parents, he put the phone down. He looked at her and asked.
“Are you serious?” she asked him.
He assured her he was.
“Yes,” she said.
They’re planning a wedding for September 2025.
On the guest list: The TriHealth therapists who helped him propose, walk down the aisle and say “I do.”