Kaedan Everhart Gets Back Outdoors After Brain Injury
Getting back to his outdoor hobbies was Kaedan's biggest priority post-injury.
The way to Kaedan Everhart’s heart typically follows a path worn by horses, dirt bikes, and four-wheelers. Yes, it takes a lot to get Kaedan Everhart indoors. For anything other than a line dance, that is.
The 18-year-old from Statesville, N.C., goes by K-Lo among his friends at the rodeos where he ropes and the stables where he rides. Throughout high school, you’d just about always find a cowboy hat on his head and boots on his feet. Except for fall Friday
nights when the talented cornerback donned a football helmet instead.
“If it’s outdoors, I’m up for it,” Kaedan says. “That’s where I’m happy. That’s where I’m me.”
On Oct. 13, 2024, however, Kaedan sustained several serious injuries in a car accident, including a traumatic brain injury (TBI). His always-in-motion life came to a standstill, with a ventilator helping him breathe and operations to repair broken bones and brain bleeds.
The great outdoors seemed very far away.
Kaedan eventually transferred to Shepherd Center’s Adolescent Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. His care team set to work right away, getting him mobile again. As Kaedan’s brain awakened, his therapists challenged the young athlete with activities to help him re-learn to think, speak, and walk.
As part of his therapy, Shepherd Center staff even took Kaedan to a horse ranch to practice his skills. And they spent extra time addressing his right-side motor deficits, a consequence of his TBI.
“That meant the most to me,” Kaedan says. “They got my arm moving again. It doesn’t straighten all the way, but I can use it for all the things I enjoy doing.”
Indeed, he’s back to roping and riding once again, his most important and peaceful pastimes. This fall, he’s working at a ranch where he drives a horse wagon. The job is just a part-time one, as he’s now in his freshman year at Mitchell Community College, with plans to transfer next
year to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Kaedan’s studying agribusiness with an eye, no surprise, toward a career that will keep him outdoors.
“God has something for me, ahead of me,” Kaedan says. “I’m thankful I get to see what it is now."
Written by Phillip Jordan
With five decades of experience, Shepherd Center provides world-class clinical care, research, and family support for people experiencing the most complex conditions, including spinal cord and brain injuries, multi-trauma, traumatic amputations, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and pain. An elite center ranked by U.S. News as one of the nation’s top hospitals for rehabilitation, Shepherd Center is also recognized as both Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems. Shepherd Center treats thousands of patients annually with unmatched expertise and unwavering compassion to help them begin again.