CommUnity Conversation: THINK FIRST Brain & Spinal Cord Injury Prevention (In CT)

Recorded March 30 2026 in studioW

In Conversation: Katie Zimmerli Think First Coordinator & VIP (Voice of Injury Prevention Meagan Ricci

Transcript

Welcome to Community Conversations. As the Think First Program Coordinator, I'm here with one of our VIPs in the program, our Voice of Injury Prevention, Megan, and we're going to be sharing our story about what Think First is and how it impacts the youth and adolescents that we go out and serve. Think First is a national program that Gaylord Hospital hosts a chapter in.

It's the only chapter in Connecticut, and the program is a national traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury awareness and prevention program that we go out and share our education with adolescents and youth and how they can prevent from getting a traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury. Thinking First and the choices that they make. Megan, can you first share with us your experience and your story about what brought you to Gaylord initially?

Of course. I'm a community case manager for myself, have been for a long time, and we often bring work home. So I was in my car and must have fell asleep. 

I do this often. However, on this day, which was April 30th of 2020, it was just the beginning of COVID. And so everyone was isolated. 

I fell asleep in my car and someone took my car and me on a drive and had an accident. We hit a tree. And unfortunately, because I wasn't buckled in because we were just sitting doing my homework or whatever we were doing for my work, planning my days and coordinating that, I wasn't thinking about being buckled in. 

Right. So unfortunately, we had the car accident. It hit someone, hit a tree. 

I suffered a hematoma to the brain, which is basically a brain bleed that could turn serious. Right. Causes traumatic brain injury.

I was in a coma for almost five days. I did flatline several times and have to be resuscitated. And I had a spinal cord injury.

So I broke my spine from my T3 to my T9, which caused an emergency fusion needed from my T4 to my T8 to decompress the T6. So basically what that means is one of my vertebrae is kind of shattered and went through my spinal cord, which almost caused a complete injury, which would be like the spinal cord completely severed. However, I'm an incomplete, but as my doctor would say, hanging on by threads. 

And unfortunately, due to the coma and things like that, they thought I would wake up not able to remember, not able to really recognize people in my surroundings. And I would be paralyzed from the waist down permanently. When you wake up, there's an Asia skill they use from A to E.

And, you know, basically skills the way your movements, your strength, your mobility and everything are starting from one through five. And I was pretty low on the assessment. So the chances of recovery and moving up just two from that A to C would have been 20 percent, which is like the mobility and just being able to like move my limbs and I really use them.

Some sensation, not enough to really enjoy life and activities and still be very dependent. Since my mobility is so limited to walk like and now even to stand and pivot, right, 20 percent in a year and to walk. They said it was like one percent never going to happen again. 

I'd be paralyzed and paraplegic from the waist down. So that was my April, end of April day and the beginning of my journey with my spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury.

So can you share what your recovery was like at Gaylord Hospital?

I have been a coach for a very long time and an athlete. So I went into recovery mode immediately. Like I knew about spinal cord injuries because I have some people who have experienced them.

So I was blessed to have a medical experience too through my jobs. And so I kind of was like, OK, we just need to get into recovery mode. I knew Gaylord was a great place to go.

They did great things for my family members. They've done great things for my clients. There was like no other place I wanted to be.

So we went to Gaylord. They have a team of phenomenal OT and PT people there. Honestly, you guys are very creative and take initiative.

Client centered, which are all the things that I look for as a case manager. So I loved it there. And you're welcome.

 And we were able to just really grow a treatment plan that was focused on like what my goals were and not necessarily what was medically possible because it wasn't much. And I went there with the dream and aspiration to walk again, which I did. Did you leave there walking?

I left ten and a half months later walking out of there as an Asia E, which is five out of five sensation strength and mobility returning, which is one in a percent. Like they, you know, they say that there's like one in a million magic and then there's one in a lifetime. And Dr. Rosenblum will often tell you, like, it's magic you're looking at, like it's one in a lifetime. He's been doing this for over 35 years and never seen these kind of results. But I really think that coming into an environment that, you know, allows you to be creative and a part of your treatment plan and very hopeful. You know, I was always asking for the skill level.

What if this and what if that? And it was never a definite yes or no. Okay, Lord, it was a we'll see.

Let's try. We'll figure it out. What happens?

You know, we'll pivot from whatever, wherever we land. And I think that really helped because it didn't limit my aspirations as a patient there, which I appreciated. So I went in on May 15th with Asia A, with the one percent to walk again.

By day 84, I took 100 feet with the walker. It was the most painful hundred feet in my life. Okay.

But sometimes the worst, the things that are really worth having in life are painful to get. That hundred feet turned into a thousand and turned into how I got this T-shirt. Gaylord Gauntlet, please, please.

Athletes get there. It really helped me realize the importance of my mobility and the importance of, you know, I was a coach, so I always coach mobility and things like that. But when you have to decide how you're going to do your hair or how you get dressed and the things that we take for granted, like you take so much for granted.

So I think that my ability to be at Gaylord and really focus on what I needed, the staff advocated for me. It's not a long term plan. So I really, really want people to contact and sponsor you guys to have a long term treatment plan center for people like me.

Because I think if people with spinal cord injuries had 10 months at Gaylord instead of six to eight weeks, which is the normal turnaround, you would see so many more cases like me. And I think that, again, hope and faith really was the thing that brought me through. I'm very much a person who, like, impossible is, you know, the task at hand saying I'm possible.

You're just reading it wrong. Like, I'm very much a perceptive and perception kind of individual. And I think Gaylord fostered that.

Like, right, think possible is their slogan. Think first is what the program is saying. Like, it's all about your perspective and how are you thinking?

What ways are you really, like, you know, exercising your practice of choice here? I think that's important. Awesome.

How did you first get involved with the Think First program? I'm a case manager and a youth coach. And it was really important to me to reach out to the youth.

I was an athlete. I was one of those kids that was great at school but, like, hated going sometimes. I was a regular kid.

So I feel like I could connect to the average teenager that we're dealing with today, right, or the average adolescent, 12-year-old, 10-year-old that we're dealing with today. I also think that as a social worker or a case manager, it gives me that background and experience I need to reach that, you know, that crowd. It can be hard at times to reach the adolescents.

But my coaching experience with the Waterbury Patriots, which is Pop Warner, you know, really helps me because there's a diverse age. You got 5 to now they go to 18, but it was 5 to 16 for so long and things like that that really helped me reach out to them. So when I'm in front of a class, I can demand their attention.

And it's a great thing to see them so locked in and so interested and, like, the teachers so envious of how we could capture that moment. But us capturing that moment is what's really important because it's going to stick with them. This conversation is going to be a conversation they have at lunch and then at dinner with mom.

And then maybe next week when they're like, oh, that's what that girl was talking about. And I think it's very important that they see how relatable these risks are to them in the community. Like, I think it's important, you know, we all say not us, not our community, not our kids.

But the truth of the matter is I was asleep when what happened to me happened to me. I had no choice in what happened to me, only how I could respond. So it's very important that the kids realize, like, when you do have choices and the ability to think first.

Because even though I'll say I didn't have any choices that day, I always talk about accountability with the kids. And the first thing I bring up is let's take accountability for yourself, right? What could I have done differently?

Maybe not my work in the car. Maybe not be so comfortable in my environment. I was outside.

Why wasn't my car doors locked? Like, there's a hundred things that I could sit there and just take accountability for for myself. Risk prevention, right?

If I had the doors locked, no one could have gotten in to take the car. If I had this, if that. So you got to think about how can you make your environment better all the time and your situation better for yourself all the time.

As well as preserve what you're going after, right, and what you're trying to do. And I think it's important that the kids see it from someone who they don't know. It's not my teacher.

It's not my mom. It's not my coach. This lady is, like, really down to earth just telling us about her story and what happened.

And as a social worker, I felt like I could connect. And as a coach, I could connect and have those conversations with them. And really, like, capture them in that moment and get, you know, across the importance of their choices.

Because we always tell our kids, like, look, it's not your choice, right? You got to do what I tell you to do. But the truth of the matter is you still have choices that are just as important and heavily weighed as your mom's choice, right?

How do you feel the students react to your story when you go and share your story with them? I love that they listen. They listen.

And they do. They're, like, locked into you. You know, I often open up with how I was a passenger.

And, you know, I have this brain injury and this spinal cord injury. I wake up four days later after I've flatlined a few times and realize that I'm paralyzed. And what am I going to do?

Like, everybody was telling me that you're not going to be able to walk again. You're, you know, you got to get comfortable with this new reality. You know, my aunt thought I was, like, getting brainwashed and going crazy because I'm telling her one thing and she's being told it's not medically happening this way.

You know, I always emphasize on the kids, like, you know, have your own imagination, right? Imagination is, like, the world's and life's way of telling you what it has in store for you. And people aren't going to see you going to college or opening that business.

But do it, you know. Our parents don't sit us down and tell us, like, take the $200 that you spend on your sneakers once a month and go put it in the IRA. See how much that does for you in 20 years from now.

We don't talk about how, you know, if you're really interested in doing these things, let me add you to my credit card and help you with your credit, right? But these conversations aren't something that are told, right? Just like the choices you make when you get into the car, you decide to be a football player, but you're not practicing, you're stretching, or you're not wearing the right equipment, or you get behind the wheel and you start texting and playing with all the buttons and digital things and, like, all those things matter, you know.

And I think it's important that when we're in Think First, we're really, like, honing in on, like, the choices that they have to make are so minimal and they're told are so small. But they, you know, what about the long-term impacts it has? So you decided to let Frank drive the car because you didn't want to be the uncool guy and say, give me your keys, you're drunk.

Now you all get in the car and there's an accident. You break your leg and can't play ball for the season, but Frank breaks his back and can't play ball ever again. Do you feel any accountability in that?

Could you have said something different? Could you have said, let me get your keys? Yeah, you're not the cool guy that night, but you live to tell a story tomorrow and you don't have to tell Frank that, hey, Mom, I'm sorry, but I'm going to go back to playing ball in a few months and your kid's got to deal with a disability forever.

And I'm probably going to end up not being friendly as much because now our lives occupy two different things. Athletic sports for, you know, special needs and adaptive sports programs are not out there, I know. Waterbury Patriots holds one of the only Central Pop Warner ones that they have in Connecticut, so I think it's really important that we realize there's not a space for that.

But it happens to these kids every day, so it's important for them to know that. You enjoy these commodities that you have in your youth, but what are you going to do when you have to learn how to use hand devices to drive your car now instead of learning stick when you could have been, you know, doing something different? So I think it's important for them to realize that their choices impact them, and I often, you know, will ask them, like, you know, look around at your friends.

You think that you all will be friends in 15 years from now? You know, if your friend says, let's do this, are you going to follow their actions and deal with the consequences that they get? Or are you going to be the proactive person and say, this isn't something we need to do?

We didn't have Uber in our day. You guys do. Are you using those, like, tools that you have there?

I talk about resources all the time and just thinking positively and being the leader in a situation. Sometimes, you know, you're not going to always be able to be the person who can be the cool guy, but to be the leader in the trailblazer is going to get you somewhere, and it's going to help the people around you. So what positive choices are you making?

And I think that when we go and think first and we go into these programs or teaching them, like, listen, even playing sports, you can get a concussion. Those concussions are brain injuries. What happens when you have too many?

Look at what's happening with the football players. We talk about that all the time to get them involved. We talk all the time about how they're driving.

You guys are getting behind the wheel. You have permit rules. Where do you think those rules came from?

You know, us making mistakes as kids ourselves are now looking at how long-term our actions are. Not only did we have people get hurt in our generation, but now you've got to deal with the repercussions of having permit restrictions because in the 90s and 80s and early 2000s, there were so many car accidents with the new technology put into cars and distractions being high. Like, you know, these things matter, and you're going to be the next one.

You're the next person getting behind that wheel, the next person making those choices that are going to affect an entire community. So I think that's important, too, because even as me as a case manager, right, I affected my clients, I affected my family, like, and I didn't even have so much of a choice in the moment, but the choices leading up to that moment were just as important as that choice. Megan, how do you believe that sharing your story helps to retain the lessons that we are sharing with the Think First program?

I think it's one thing for you to stand up there with your presentation and, you know, you have these cute little skits that you play out about how when you're texting and, like, the get out of the car, freeze time, please wait, you know, my kids are in the car. And she's like, oh, I'm just texting my mom I'm on the way home. I'm not going to make it.

And then, like, you know, boom, they have a crash. And, like, those are all good examples. But then when I get up and I start to explain to them, like, listen, I was asleep in my car and I woke up four days later with a broken back and a spinal cord injury and a brain injury.

Had to learn how to walk again. I show them videos and I show them the templates of me standing in the OG. What was it called?

The zero G.  Yeah, the zero G.

You know, learning how to walk and regain that ability to even hold your weight. You know, people don't understand how important your core is. Go to the gym, work on your core.

Like, it's so important because even to this day, if I'm having problems some days, it's not my upper back, it's not my calf, it's my core and my hips that are the most important tools to stand up and walk. But before that incident happened, as an athlete coach, I would have never thought that it was that important. So do you feel like the firsthand experience of someone coming into the classroom?

Right, so they see it. They're relating to it, right? I'm showing them with your little spine thing that, hey, look, from here to here, this is where I broke my spine.

From here to here, this is where I'm fused. We look at the screws on the, you know, we show the picture. And, you know, we go into, this is how it affected me, right?

I have trouble remembering. I'm in school. I'm going to get my, you know, bachelor's this May.

But it took an extra year to do it because I had to take so many classes over because of my brain injuries and things that I have to deal with now that I'm on. You can't see them, but they're happening. Yes, I recovered to a miraculous state.

There are still a lot of things that I deal with that you can't see. And so I think it's really important that they understand the impact, like, when we go to them and we talk to them and they're able to, like, just relate, like, wow, like, this is somebody who went through it. Like, it's not my mom just telling me this happens.

Like, people really do hit trees and split their car in half, and people really do, like, break their back. People really do die twice. You know, it's not just in the movies that people have to get resuscitated twice.

I flatlined twice, and I make that very clear. Like, listen, I had a flatline twice at least, I'm pretty sure. One of them was in the ambulance, okay?

I woke up combative when they resuscitated me. Because you're shocked. You're literally shocked back to life.

You're waking up combative, and you're in pain, and you have all this adrenaline rushing through your body. These things really happen. And then once you're in those moments, there's no changing the choice effect.

It happens like that. So I think it's important for them to see that. I have videos.

I show videos. I show pictures. I often do examples of, like, jumping jacks or things that I can do now that I'm not supposed to be able to do.

I bring up live instances of, like, listen, if you're the one at your table that all your friends come to for advice and you don't have anyone to go to advice to, just change your tables, right? How is that leadership helping you? Because I was the strongest person at my table, and when I was there for ten and a half months, who do you think came and saw me in rehab?

No one. And it wasn't just COVID because the rules were changed after six months. So, you know, I think a lot of times they need to understand, like, there are going to be life things that you want that you're not going to have the support and the people in your corner or the people in your corner are not the ones you would thought.

I would have never thought that my strongest community came from the people treating me, you know, but that it makes sense, right? Because they've seen the miracles happen before. They've seen other people have moments of gaining something that's supposed to be impossible.

So I think that for them it was probably more realistic that, all right, she wants to be headstrong and try it, let's do it, versus someone else who might be reserved and just listen to the doctors and run with that. And I think that that's the difference. It's really important for them to know that, you know, this is real.

Like, she's not just putting a few slides together and showing you a skeleton and telling you to be careful because your mom doesn't want you to drink and we don't want you to, you know, put us at risk. It's also about the fact that it gets down to playing a game with your friends, right? Wrestling around.

How many times are you guys horse playing, you know, at home with each other? You're playing basketball and you're horse playing with each other. Someone could get hurt.

You don't realize the choices that you're making and the effects they cause. And I think that just this program really shows a physical thing. Like, it's not just someone talking about it.

There's someone physically there. You can ask me questions, and I say that. What are your questions?

And sometimes kids will say, well, were you mad at that person? Or were you this? Or how'd you do this?

And do you feel pain now? Absolutely, I feel pain every day, I won't lie to you. But there are days where I have to question it.

Like, oh, wait, I feel good today, you know? I'm a big person of faith. God brought me to it, and he brought me through it.

You know, I truly believe that the power of prayer and belief gets you real far away. I tell the kids all the time, obtaining something you want, nine-tenths is just believing. One is possibilities.

But if you believe it, you can achieve it. The minute you admit to yourself, this might be out of my league, it's going to become out of reach. So I think it's very, very important for them to know that, too.

What are you doing to build yourself, you know? We all invest in other people. What are you investing in yourself?

There's a rule, like, I don't know, 100 minutes a month or something, and you become, like, this master at things. Are you spending that 18 minutes a day on yourself? I talk about that.

You know, I talk about how, like, before my accident, I'd get up at 3 in the morning and go get a friend. Because they're on the side of the road, right? I tell the story all the time.

Now I'm going to call them an Uber. I'm still coming through for you. But I'm preserving myself and my health, too, right?

So it taught me a really good balance. And I think that when the kids see somebody who's comparing real-life situations, you know, I'll tell them, listen, you'll be at a party. What happens if you have that friend that you know shouldn't be leaving, going anywhere but home?

Are you going to be the friend to stand up to them? Because you don't want to have to deal with their parents tomorrow. Like, at what point do you become the leader in the situation?

And a lot of times it's hard for us to realize that we aren't, you know, we don't have the support. And we are the leader already. So there's nothing wrong with relating it.

You know, we take all this stuff, these lessons of spinal cord injuries, and, you know, you really adapt them in your car, texting, sports and other athletic, even fighting. We talk about how fighting could get someone knocked out and fighting could get someone in a spinal cord or a brain injury, right? That if you're driving the wrong way and you accidentally hurt someone and killed them in a car accident, of course you didn't mean to, but now you're going to jail for manslaughter, right?

There's just these rules, right? People don't get arrested for leaving the scene of the crime because they, you know, hit somebody and left. They get arrested because they were going the wrong way or they were drinking and driving or, you know, they were doing something else outside of just having an accident that caused it.

Again, choices. And I think that all those conversations and relating them to, like, you're at that age and we understand the peer pressures of wanting to go with the flow in the crowd, but there's nothing wrong with starting a new wave is really important. I think how we relate to, like, when we did it in COVID, how you guys were my biggest support system, how sometimes families aren't really with what we're doing and you've got to utilize what you have, right?

Whether it's my therapist here, my own inner courage and strength, I think it's really important that we discuss those things and we do. And we make it really life-relatable for them, you know? I think that I get them really engaged.

I'm always asking them questions while I'm presenting to make sure that they are engaged in following me, which is probably why when the bell rings, they don't leave. And I think that speaks volumes. Like, if I could just record it one time so y'all could see, like, you know, when you guys are doing the presentations with me, I can't speak for anyone else, I know that they don't get up and move all the time, you know?

Or if they do, they come up and they have their questions or their little, you know, sayings on the way out, which means that you've really touched them and impacted them. I think that's really important. This program makes a difference.

I've been stopped in college by kids. Like, hey, you spoke in my class, and I can't tell you the joy.

That's amazing.

That it makes me feel like I'm getting, you know, emotional now just thinking about it because, like, I'm impacting these kids to the point where with my short-term memory loss, I don't always remember all of them unless they've asked me questions or engaged with me during the presentation. But the fact that they can remember me, that's the impact. That's the lasting impact that Think First makes in these presentations is that you bring these VIPs that are relatable.

It really did happen to them. This isn't just a presentation. This is a whole live person animated and alive I can ask questions to.

And then I see her in real life, like, doing the things that she said she was doing. So it just reinforces what the program is trying to deliver to the community. I think that speak out right there in yourself. 

I love it because it has not happened once. It's happened multiple times. Like, this isn't a fluke. 

Like, at first I thought it was, but I've gone to college five years, and I've been stopped at least a half a dozen times. That's not to speak for in the community. So it's happened a few times there, too. 

So it really is an impactful thing that we're doing because for kids that are in high school or even middle school, to be like, hey, I saw you in eighth grade, and now four years later I'm in my freshman year, and you're in your senior year at college, and I see you here. I was just stopped several months ago. I think I texted you when someone stopped me to speak to me about it.

It was like, you know, these are the moments that I do this for because it lets me know and reinforces that we are impacting these kids. And if we could get a minute of their time, a minute of their attention, if we could be that little voice in the back of their head that makes them think twice, then we've done something right. And I think that Think First brings a perspective of a person.

And that's not paperwork or a chart and a pie that I could dismiss. This is a live person I can't dismiss. You know, it's demanding my attention.

So I think that's important. It is. That's amazing, Megan.

Overall, do you think the students take the lessons that we present to them through the Think First program seriously? And how do you know that they do? I think they take it seriously by the questions they ask at the end of presentation. 

They're very engaged in how did it affect you? Like, what's wrong now? You know, you say that we can't see, so are you still in pain?

Do you still feel this? Like, I'll show them my tone often. I'll do jumping jacks and on purpose not do what I usually do to hide the tone and show them, like, this is what I would deal with if I didn't have that ability, which I had to build over time. 

And so I think that that's important. I think they take away and apply it because the kids recognize you in the community and recognize, like, what Gaylord is. Like, even as a coach, my kids understand what Gaylord is because they understand they've seen the shirts and they understand, like, what coach does at those presentations.

And I bring some of that information back to them, right? When I'm teaching, I do cheer, and we have football. What are you guys doing?

Like, you know, when we're on the board, we're talking about equipment. Do we want to buy those extra, you know, outer skeletons to protect them? If we're not exposing the kids to this information, they're not aware of it either. 

So they're not advocating for it. They're not asking for it. They're not practicing it, right?

And if it is being brought to them, it's being dismissed maybe because it's my teacher, my health ed, my PE, but these people are new. They're interesting. They're bringing facts with them. 

They're bringing proof with them, videos. There's ladies, like, jumping around, showing us all this cool stuff. There's a scar they can clearly see, right?

So I think all these things really matter in them retaining it and then applying it because I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to go through that. She talks a lot about resilience and how lonely that road was.

I don't want to have to deal with that. She talks about the things she lost in sports and athletics. I don't want to do that.

I'm an athlete. And I think that's important, and I think most of all we talk about, like, just the power of thinking first, the power of that choice. I think you emphasize making that choice of calling that cab, making that choice of not being that friend, right, being that voice of reason to the group.

You often emphasize, and I'll piggyback off of, right, we'll say, like, who puts their seatbelt on every time and who asks their friend, right? I think that's important. It engages them, right, and it makes them remember, like, wait a minute.

You don't wear your seatbelt all the time. You go put it on when you go home, right? Like, it makes you aware, right?

Now maybe when they're going down the street to the grocery store, they're telling their mom, put your seatbelt on. This lady told me, like, five blocks down, she got hit by a car. It's important to just have those conversations and those live relations, and I think that they have them and it correlates for them and becomes something great. 

How important do you feel it is that this Think First program, A, continues but, B, grows? Since Think First is the only chapter in Connecticut, we're trying to reach as many students as possible. So how do you think, by growing this program, that would impact the youth and adolescents here?

I think I've tried at least a dozen times to, like, convince you to make a college course of this too because we're not done here yet. Like, the average spinal cord injury and brain injury person is from 14 to 24, right? So why are we going after just, you know, the adolescents in high school?

We need to be in college too, right? They have the same problem. I'm always pushing you there.

So one, if someone wants to help that grow, please, like, I'll help with that. But it needs to happen because you have nurses. You have PTs.

You have OTs. You have CNAs. You have first responders.

Everyone is getting made there that, you know, needs this. You guys need to know the difference you can make in someone's life. You also need to know the risk you're at.

Working in this field isn't a hazard-free one. And also I think it's important to, like, know the impact you can make on your community and how you can make it differently. Yeah, you can be a social worker.

You can be an OT. You can be a PT. You can do all kinds of things.

Work with a chronic ill like I was with damages to the brain and spine. Be a kid's OT or PT. There's multiple skills.

But if we don't expose them, they don't know what's out there. And I think that it was really important for me. I'm always asking, like, well, can we go to this school?

Or maybe we can go to that school, right? I'm always trying to help you coordinate because I don't want to do it just for the get-out-of-school card. I really want to impact these kids.

I go, I speak to them about my story. I talk to them about their importance of change and importance of choice and, you know, change one activity for 21 days and it becomes a new habit, you know, subconsciously. It takes seven days to change a habit, 21 for it to become something installed and just part of your routine.

So let's do that. Like, I bring all these cute little catches and autos and things like that that I think stick with them, and I think it's so important that we utilize this program and make it grow, right? I tell you all the time, like, I want to go to every school in Connecticut.

Why can't it be in every school in Connecticut? Because they all need to hear this. Why are we not going to colleges?

Not only do they need to hear it from a college student perspective of safety and risk prevention, but one-third of the school's degrees all deal with this, whether it's administration or the PT helping you learn the, you know, skills. So I think it's really important that thing first becomes more than what it is. You know, and I know it's a national program, so I can't change just my chapter and not all of them comply, but I think it would be a beautiful thing for it to grow into something bigger.

I think it would be a beautiful thing if we had so much to do in so many school districts that now this becomes an internship program you can make, right? Now, as an OT, I'm too inundated with clients and the request for thing first to be in school, so I'm going to have interns come and do those presentations now or something like that and just be able to grow the program to not only help the community that we're presenting to, but the community that's going to be serving the people we're talking about, the ones that get the brain injuries and things, because I think it's important to realize these are everyday people. We're all one choice away from being the person with the brain or spinal cord injury that we're discussing, and I think that's really, really important, and I think the exposure of thing first in any manner is going to bring that. You know, I'm wearing my Gaylord Gauntlet shirt because, again, exposure is everything.

Having you guys have that program helps people who have these injuries have everyday, regular lives. So I'll always say that at my little pitches and stuff, and people think, oh, you just love the Gauntlet, so you're being a coach. No, I want these kids to realize that you can do this too. 

Anyone can do this. They have people from the hospital doing this. I think it's great that we learn to become an inclusive environment again because these phones and technology have taken us away from driving and just listening to the music and being safe, wearing our helmets and paying attention to the plays of the coach instead of the camera and catching it on social media.

I think it's important that we make the kids realize there's more than just the aesthetics in your environment that you have to think about, but the consequences of how your choice affects and inflicts the way that changes or grows. So I think thing first should be in every school. I think we should have a contract with every region.

I think that you should hate me in five years from now because everyone calls you to come to their school and do a presentation in their health class because this is health-related. Risk and prevention is not only a health and safety matter with these kids, but it's a growing matter in the population at all. We're having people die by motor vehicle accidents and brain injuries, like strokes and things like that.

Do you think there's a higher risk today than there was even five or ten years ago for adolescents and youth? Absolutely. We're distracted by everything.

You get into these cars, they've got TVs and screens now. Everything's touchscreen, that's a beautiful thing. But now when you're driving, you've got to go through the TV program.

It's no longer about the road. It's no longer about the tasks that you're doing anymore. It's no longer about, I'm responsible.

I tell people all the time, you're responsible for everyone in your car. So you don't have to ask them to put the seatbelt on because they want to. Do it because you're legally responsible.

Who's getting the manslaughter charge? Think about those things. Think about the reality of that.

And I think it's just really important that we utilize the program and they see that through the program. They see that through our deliveries and stuff like that. So I just hope that when we have these moments to present and to grow, that they realize, okay, this is what I don't want to do and this is what I want to do.

These are the choices that I can make. Awesome. I do want to say that Think First does not just create moments for us to reach the children and create moments for us to implement the importance of these choices that we have to make, right, of the safety that they have to make.

But you're giving the VIPs a place of inclusion, a place to make that traumatic thing that happened to them that most of them would wish they could change. You know, most people aren't embracing the trauma like I am. They're like, oh, I wish I could change it.

It never happened to me. So you're giving them a positive reinforcement to it doesn't have to be a bad thing. You can make this something that was worthwhile to you and that you can create change and a positive situation could come from it.

So I really appreciate that from Think First because a lot of programs will discuss the preventatives and the things that we shouldn't do and why we shouldn't do them, but you don't include the reasons why. It's almost like it's taboo. Let's not show what happens.

But, you know, giving that VIP person that stage and that ability to really emphasize the importance of these choices and, like, you know, nobody wants to be here, but I'm working it, you know, and thanks to Gaylord I can do that. But it's also important for them to see the person. It gives that person that validation.

So has it helped you with your recovery? I think it absolutely has. I want to be a person who touches the youth in many people.

I want to be a black public speaker. I want people to understand that impossible really is the task at hand saying I'm possible. I want people to understand that your choices really do matter, that you really, it ripples like that pebble and it affects everyone.

And I think Think First gives me that platform to get comfortable with it, right? I hope to be on a TED Talk one day, but until then it really gives me the ability to reach hundreds of kids. Like, I always make a goal of, like, 1,000 kids a year.

I've always reached it through the program. So, one, again, it's reinforcing me as a person who's disabled, but I'm proud now. I'm proud of that disability because look how far I've come.

Look what's capable still. Look how I'm still capable and I'm able, right? A disability doesn't have to define you.

However, let's talk about the risk prevention things we could take and the risk prevention steps that we can implement in our lives every day so we don't have to be me, right? Because this is great, and everyone, you know, I'm not anyone different. Everyone can get better, right?

If you put your mind to it, I don't care how long it takes. It might take a while, but you can get where you really want to be. It's just having that strength to put our mind there.

So I don't want anyone to have to do that, but I think that it is a real thing that Think First gives me is that I have that ability to use my story to reach the youth, reach people, and really make them realize the changes and the choices that they have. Think First is an amazing community because it's putting realistic situations that are not talked about in schools in schools, right? We talk about choices from football playing to party taking, right, to calling an Uber when you're at a party and you're uncomfortable with the driver.

Maybe you get the keys from your friend, but you could choose to do good for you. Like, you know, at some point when you make the choice for yourself and the best choice for yourself and not the group of friends you're with or being that individual, that's important. Like, Think First goes beyond just, hey, we're a brain.

We want to protect the brain and spinal cord. I think Think First gives a platform for the children to have another outlet of exposure to risk prevention, to have someone say, well, why should we, right? How many times have they said, well, why is it this or why is it that or, you know, why does that happen to the brain?

Now they can ask someone who's a professional who can actually answer that and not their PE person who's like, I don't know, we're going to research and get back to you, and it falls through the cracks. So I think it's a really great interactive program, interactive being the heavy part about it for both sides, right? And I think that it's something relatable.

Like, we come in and we have this great presentation and all these facts that are shared, and then live people, you're in that field, right, so we can promote, like, hey, you could be me and help people and do this, you know, and deal with these kind of people, but you can also be me if you don't make the right choices. And then there's people like me, and then there's other people who don't get as better. There's times where I do need my cane.

Like, I think once or twice I bought a few things into a presentation and said, this is what I had to deal with, right? You take a picture of me in my shell. That's what I've had to deal with.

I've got to wear binders or corsets sometimes if I'm doing certain things. And I think it's important for them to understand, like, you're always going to have to adapt to your situation. I think FIRST gives us an ability to get into the schools and talk about the lessons that might not be so much taught but important to the kids learning ways to make different decision-making skills.

So I really appreciate Think FIRST and the way they emphasize thinking first and the choices that these kids make. Spinal cord injury and brain injury is one of the most preventable injuries that we end up having because of the choices that we make, and I think it's important for them to know that. Yeah, awesome.

So I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Megan. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you. With everyone out there, thank you for joining us with Community Conversations and engaging with us today at Think FIRST program.