Lehighton community helps family with local ties

Tragedy struck the Dorward family on the Fourth of July this year when their son Taylor was found unconscious on the bottom of a pool.

He wasn’t breathing, and he didn’t have a heartbeat. Luckily, his close friend had recently taken a class on CPR, and he performed chest compressions until emergency personnel arrived. The EMTs were able to resuscitate Taylor’s heart, and he was quickly taken to a South Carolina hospital.

After one of Taylor’s friends called the Dorward family, who were celebrating the holiday a few hours away, they raced to the hospital.

“It was a terrible drive, as you can imagine. The paramedics, after they left, they wouldn’t give any information until we got to the hospital, so we didn’t know anything, really,” said Taylor’s father, Shawn, formerly of Lehighton.

Doctors told the family that Taylor had significant brain damage. He would have to be cooled to prevent further damage, and he was later put into a medically induced coma. After warming his body back up, all the family could do was wait for a change.

“It was this horrible vacuum, what seemed like what could have been eternity, from when they warmed his body back up,” Shawn said.

Not long after, Taylor’s mother, Jennifer, decided that the family should consider moving him to another facility. Caseworkers helped the Dorwards put in a request to the Medical University of South Carolina, about two and a half hours away.

After the MUSC staff ran through their own battery of tests, things weren’t looking too much better. One physician even recommended that Shawn start considering end-of-life plans, including organ donation, if Taylor didn’t make it.

The Dorwards consulted with a senior attending neurologist, one who had over four decades of experience. He told the family that there was no certainty as to Taylor’s future — things could turn around, they could stay the same, or even get worse.

“From that point, we decided we were going to change our entire mentality. We were going to measure every tiny little thing that improved, and it took a lot work, but we did that every day,” Shawn said.

Shawn and Jennifer pored over the doctors’ notes, kept a careful eye on Taylor and consulted with each and every physician. They meticulously noted and celebrated every positive change.

“We tried to visualize that by using pennies in a jar. It’s been incredible. I remember when we put the first penny in the jar. It made a loud bellow as it dinged around the bottom of the jar, and the jar sounded so empty. And now when we drop a penny in it, you can just hear the strength of all the pennies underneath it. It’s very poetic, very symbolic of the recovery and rehabilitation he’s gone through,” Shawn said.

Waking up

And then, about two weeks after the incident, while Shawn and Jennifer, along with their son Joshua and daughter Samantha, were visiting, something incredible happened.

“We were just standing around him praying and holding his hand while he was sleeping. It was quite incredible, because he fully opened his eyes, and he started looking toward us. There was even a little glimpse of an upper lip movement, as if he was trying to smile,” Shawn said.

Things got better. Taylor showed improvements with movement. After 12 days at MUSC, the family opted to transfer Taylor to a nationally renowned brain injury rehabilitation center. With even more therapeutic options, Shawn said that Taylor excelled physically. While he has yet to recover his eyesight and full speech capabilities, the Dorwards couldn’t be happier with where Taylor is at in his recovery.

On top of that, Taylor is inspiring people to push themselves to the limit with their own therapy, even if they threw in the towel before.

“He’s making it happen every day, inspiring people here and inspiring people who gave up on their therapy, who read about his story online. They share with me that they’re going to start going to therapy again after seeing Taylor’s determination,” Shawn said.

Support from all over

Understandably, such high-level care comes at quite the hefty price. But thanks to a gracious network of friends from all over, the Dorwards have not had to stress over finances while Taylor recovers.

When the 2017 class of Gilbert High School heard about their fellow graduate’s struggle, one alumni, Kelly Glover, created a GoFundMe page to help alleviate the family’s hospital expenses. So far, they have taken in nearly $4,500 of their $5,000 goal.

Joseph Willingham, one of Taylor’s expansive circle of friends, has helped accrue almost $18,000 from contributions over the past month.

“I put the GoFundMe out, and it was getting $100 after a day, then $200, then $300. And then Taylor’s dad’s best friend, she contacted a bunch of people that they work with, and there were thousands of dollars donated rapidly,” Willingham said. “We’ve increased the goal a few times. First it was $1,500, then it was $5,000, then it was $10,000 and now it’s $20,000. His mom’s work donated $9,000.”

Locally, friends of Shawn, who grew up in Lehighton, have been coming together to help their old friend’s family. The Roeder family, located in Lehighton, decided to raise funds through a sale that would also offer a big show of support for Taylor.

“We did a T-shirt fundraiser,” Crystal Roeder said. “My husband, Jason, went to high school with Shawn. It’s just something from us here in PA to let them know that we’re here to help them out. The shirts are going to read #TeamTaylor, that’s the message that started the whole thing out.”

Roeder said that 54 shirts have already been ordered, and that $5 from each sale will go to the family. In the near future, friends of the family plan on congregating for a huge group photo, along with a video featuring cheers of encouragement to send to Taylor.

And all throughout Taylor’s stays at hospitals and rehabilitation, his friends have come in droves to cheer him on.

“They carpool, they rent hotel rooms, they find friends nearby that they can stay with, and they pray with us and for us. I get offer to mow our lawn while we’re gone, to feed our dog. These young people have a lot of hope, they know how to put it into action,” Shawn said.

Going forward, there’s still a lot of work for Taylor. But based on how much he has accomplished in just over a month after that fateful Fourth of July, things are looking up.

“We feel like he will have a healthy body and a healthy mind, despite what seemed to be the darkest time in his life,” Shawn said.

And much of that progress, Shawn said, comes from the wonderful people in Taylor’s life, whether they hail from South Carolina, Pennsylvania or anywhere else in the world, they have played an integral part in his recovery.

“There’s so much to the power of positive thinking, whether it comes from prayer or just believing that something will get better,” Shawn said, “The more people that think of him, I just know it makes an impact. I love sharing his story. It really is remarkably unearthly, where we’re at right now and how he’s doing.”