Mission Moment: Learning to Walk on Holy Ground

Cole Burton wasn’t supposed to be walking into the Spring Fling at Shepherd Center. He wasn’t supposed to run in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race or finish college or get a master’s degree. In fact, he wasn’t supposed to be alive at all, according to the acute care physicians who advised his parents to consider withdrawing life support. 

“We told them we were going to keep praying, and that we just wanted them to keep doctoring,” says his mother, Tina. 

Cole, then a 21-year-old geology major at Auburn University, was with a class examining rocks near Glencoe, Alabama, on May 24, 2018, when the driver of a truck lost control and hit him and another student. They were airlifted to Birmingham. Cole, who was in a coma, had multiple broken bones, a tear in his intestine, and a brain injury.

His dad, Charlie, was at his job in Decatur, Alabama, when he got the call. He picked up Tina, a teacher, and Cole’s sister, Libba, a college freshman, and drove toward Birmingham. They saw Cole briefly before he went into surgery. “He was dirty,” Tina says. “He had a lot of facial lacerations, cuts all over him, and a big, busted lip.” 

For three and a half weeks, Cole remained in a coma. As he slowly regained consciousness, he almost died of sepsis. Still, Tina says, “We had a peace that everything was going to be fine.” When Cole had recovered enough to consider rehabilitation, nurses whispered, “Go to Shepherd.” 

At Shepherd, staff members noticed something missing from Cole’s luggage: “Where are his tennis shoes?” someone asked. “Cole was not mobile,” Charlie says. “He was not verbal. He had a tracheostomy and a feeding tube— and they wanted to know where his sneakers were.” 

Tina, Charlie, and Libba left Cole’s side together for the first time since the accident to eat at a restaurant and buy athletic shoes. Back at Shepherd, they moved into the family residence on and off for the next year, where meeting the relatives of other patients “was an absolute blessing,” Charlie says. “We were all part of a club nobody wants to join.” 

Meanwhile, Cole was getting better. Therapists pushed him hard, he says, “but it felt like fun.” After inpatient care, he transferred to Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd’s outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program. Then he added Beyond Therapy®, a Shepherd Center program that combines athletic training and physical therapy. He also walked and ran on the Atlanta Beltline. 

On July 4, 2019, he wore his sneakers to complete the Peachtree Road Race. He also completed his studies for a bachelor’s degree in geology at Auburn, went straight into a master’s program for a degree in kinesiology, and followed that with an internship at Shepherd. He traveled to Hawaii and Yellowstone National Park, ideal destinations for someone interested in geology. Asked whether he’s doing anything with rocks these days, Cole answers yes: “Making bad jokes and puns about rocking out.” Now he is an exercise physiologist working with cardiac patients. 

Leaving Shepherd was “exciting, exhilarating,” Charlie says. “It was also one of the scariest moments of our lives because we were leaving the Shepherd bubble.” Correcting himself, he says, “You never really leave the Shepherd family. There’s something intangible—special—about 2020 Peachtree Road, and the healing that takes place. This is holy ground.” 

Written by Gayle White

This story is an excerpt from “Mission Moments: 50 Years of Rebuilding Lives One Moment at a Time,” a book celebrating Shepherd’s 50th anniversary in 2025.