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How a paralyzed island man offers hope to us all

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David Jones now is seeing parts of his native Hilton Head Island he hasn't seen since he became -- almost overnight -- paralyzed from the neck down 11 years ago.

When David's Hilton Head Island High School classmates found out about his situation last year, they set about to make his life better. They raised $36,000 to buy him a specially-equipped van, and in the process learned a lot about themselves and the value of their Hilton Head roots.

After more than a year of effort, Class of 1991 Seahawk classmates Elise Silver Simons and Julie Jones Delguercio drove the van up to David's Mitchelville Road home Labor Day weekend. Elise and Julie were the ringleaders in raising the money. David's nurse, Barbara Russell, drove them to a beach park nearby so they could all say they took the first trip together. They named the van "Goldie" for its color, and christened it with a magnetized sign that says "VanForDavid.com."

The van -- a 2004 Ford E-250 with fewer than 18,000 miles-- means David's world can once again branch beyond the bike paths he maneuvers in an electric wheelchair he controls by puffing into a tube.

By any physical measure, David got a bum deal in life. He was a strapping, gregarious commercial shrimper, like his father and his grandfather before him. Then with no warning, a burning sensation turned into a rush to the hospital and before any of it could sink in, a doctor walked into the room and told him he'd never walk again. A rare virus called transverse myelitis had attacked his spinal column.

HOPE LIVES

David doesn't see his life ending there. Even though it requires a respirator hooked into his throat to move his vocal chords, David has a powerful message.

"I've always had a desire to walk again," he told me Friday. "I will continue to keep that alive, not only for me but for my son and other people who think they may be in worse situations. With hope, anything can be achieved."

Now he can ride around the island and say "What is that? Where am I? That wasn't there!" His first trip without his classmates was to the docks at Hudson's restaurant. Maybe it was his fishing heritage, he said, but he needed to look out over the swirling currents of Skull Creek he knew so well.

David says he now can go to his son's teacher conferences. And he's especially looking forward to attending the Hilton Head Island High homecoming game this fall.

Julie said David has a van "because of who he is. I think he puts a message out there."

David told me, "It is my ambition to do motivational speaking. I look forward to using the van to take me to different places to speak, hopefully with young people to just let them know it's not as bad as it may seem."

He wants able-bodied people to live with greater faith and hope.

"It is my heart's desire to speak so that I may inspire one person. And it would be my hope that one person would use that inspiration to inspire one other person. And from that there would be a tag line of inspiration spread.

"Take a look at me and then ask yourself, 'How bad is that problem?' It's not really that bad."

COMMUNITY RESPONDS

David asked me to send his "message of gratitude" to the community.

Elise and Julie sent out 196 thank-you notes to donors. David's Facebook page now has 106 friends from coast to coast, most of them high school classmates reunited by the drive to help the kid everybody liked in school.

The Palmetto Electric Trust made a healthy contribution.

"Two donations came from couples who live in Colleton River who were touched by what David's father had done to protect that land and wanted to help David because they so love the community he helped preserve," said Elise, who is the daughter of islanders Stuart and Linda Silver.

David's father piloted the "Capt. Dave" shrimp trawler to Washington, D.C., in 1970, carrying 25 pounds of fresh Port Royal Sound shrimp for the secretary of the interior and 45,000 petition signatures opposing a BASF chemical plant proposed for Victoria Bluff.

A generous donation from Tom and Angie Rhoads got the van project in gear, Julie said, and classmate Kelly Best Vogel launched it into the digital age, designing Web sites.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, Mellow Mushroom hosted a fundraiser because of owners John and Kim Boyce and manager Dom Hausher, a classmate. David was able to attend, and fellow Seahawks Shawn Pritchard, Stephanie and Aaron Lemke, Meg Strimpfel and Molly Strimpfel McDonough helped turn it into a successful auction of goods donated by local businesses. Even former high school teachers Nancy Snavely, Stephanie Martin and George and Sherry Westerfield came.

The Deep Well Project set up the Van For David Jones Fund, and director Betsy Doughtie helped guide the former Seahawks through the maze of fundraising. The fund remains open so the burden of insuring, fueling and maintaining the van doesn't fall on David. He lives with his mother, Janie Holmes Jones, who has cancer.

"Each ride I do cherish," said David, "because I know this did not have to be, but it is because of the willingness of a community bonded together to help and that's a great thing to see."

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