Keylan Watkins Back to Teenage Life Post-TBI
After a traumatic brain injury, 15-year-old Keylan is back to school, work, and spending time with friends
When Keylan Watkins returned home to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Shepherd Center, his mother, LaToya, took him to Erlanger Hospital to show them how far he’d come.
“I wanted them to see the miracle Shepherd created,” LaToya says.
Four months earlier, on June 2, 2023, Keylan, then 12, sustained a traumatic brain injury when he fell off an all-terrain vehicle. He was in the pediatric intensive care unit at Erlanger for 35 days, where doctors were unsure of Keylan’s prognosis. After learning about Shepherd Center from a caseworker, LaToya and Keylan arrived by ambulance to start his rehabilitation.
Keylan was using a feeding tube and was unable to walk, talk, or eat. But he slowly made progress.
“I was optimistic about his chance for recovery, but I also doubtful because of what the doctors had told me,” LaToya says.
That doubt of Keylan having a successful recovery faded during their first week at Shepherd Center.
“He was standing more, reacting more, and began remembering things,” she remembers. “I knew we were in the right place and that things would be okay.” 
In Shepherd Center’s Adolescent Rehabilitation Program, Keylan enjoyed being with other kids close to his age, socializing, playing games, and shooting baskets in the gym.
“It was fun and took my mind off of what I was going through,” Keylan says. He set small goals for himself – like walking down the hall on his own – and surpassed them all.
After 46 days at Shepherd Center and a few weeks at outpatient rehabilitation at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Keylan returned home in October 2023 and began seventh grade.
Now 15, Keylan is a freshman in high school. His doctors have discouraged playing sports because of the risk of head injury, but he stays busy off the field. He is happy just “chilling with his friends,” and has a job running the scoreboard and keeping the stats for basketball games at the Chattanooga Parks and Recreation Department, where LaToya also works. He is also training to be an umpire for softball games.
Keylan and LaToya are both grateful for Shepherd Center.
“I loved everything about Shepherd Center,” LaToya says. “It was such a family atmosphere. I tell everyone it is an amazing place and they create miracles.”
Written by Sara Baxter
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.