'So Many Miracles'

On September 14, 2021, Ole Djalleta was on his way to high school football practice when the car he was riding in was involved in an accident. He sustained a severe traumatic brain injury and was unconscious. Doctors at Northside Hospital Gwinnett told his family to prepare for the worst.

Ole survived and, two weeks later, transferred to Shepherd Center’s Disorders of Consciousness Program, part of the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program.

For his mother, Mihret Hamda, getting to Shepherd Center gave her hope.

“The minute we got there, therapists started working with him,” she recalls. “I had this tremendous sense of relief that things were progressing.” She was even more relieved when he emerged from his disorder of consciousness after seven long weeks.

“When I woke up, I remember being terrified,” Ole says. “I didn’t know where I was, and it was hard to fall asleep.” He couldn’t speak, breathe independently, walk, or do anything for himself. He spent three months at Shepherd Center relearning how to do everything before transferring to Shepherd Pathways — Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation program for people recovering from brain injury  — to continue his rehabilitation.

Ole continued to improve and credits the “super chill” therapists at Shepherd Center and Pathways for his progress. “They made it fun so I could work hard to regain my cognitive and physical abilities,” he says. “They sometimes played The Weeknd, my favorite artist of all time, during my therapy sessions.”

Through it all, he was focused on one goal: As president of his senior class at Providence Christian Academy in Lilburn, Georgia, he wanted to give a speech at his graduation.

In May 2022, just eight months after the crash, Ole walked up to the stage and gave that graduation speech, and included a thank you to his therapists. He received a standing ovation.

Ole continued to work hard at therapy, returning to Shepherd Center several times to improve his function.

Two years later, Ole is a freshman at Georgia State University studying biomedical sciences. He hopes to one day design machines like the ones that helped him learn to walk again. His next goal is to move to on-campus housing and live on his own.

Believing that Ole's love for fitness and access to personal training played a crucial role in his recovery, Mihret founded Ole’s Angels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting adolescents and young adults with brain and spinal cord injuries. Ole's Angels provides access to physical training and nutrition consulting with the goal of enhancing the recovery and overall well-being of its participants.

Ole and his mother are grateful to Shepherd Center for his incredible recovery.

“God gave us so many miracles, and one of them was Shepherd Center,” says Mihret. “Thank you just doesn’t seem to be enough.”

Written by Sara Baxter