North Carolina Man Graduates 4 Years After Being Shot And Paralyzed From The Neck Down

Boone‘s life was forever changed back in 2018 during St. Patrick’s Day weekend. While visiting Columbia, South Carolina, for a fraternity event, a partygoer fired off a few shots into a crowd. One of these bullets struck Boone, a college junior at the time, in the neck.

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“I was in a sedated coma for almost two weeks before I actually woke up,” Boone said. “I coded twice, on the scene and again during surgery.”

Eventually, the former athlete and Army Reserve Soldier awoke to discover that the bullet had cut his spinal cord, resulting in him being paralyzed from the neck down.

“Going back to football and sports, I had never really experienced an injury, so in the back of my mind I’m like ‘Is this how it feels to tear an ACL and go through surgery?’” Boone said. “I’m like ‘Okay, well give me about two weeks and I’ll be back on my feet, we good.’”

However, he instead went to an Atlanta-based rehabilitation clinic, where reality truly began to set in.”

“I lost feeling… like, I lost everything. Everything I worked for just went away,” he recalled.