JACKSON TWP. − Austin Walkup is living his best life this summer.
The 32-year-old and his family are checking off boxes on his to-do list.
The Massillon resident has gone tubing along the Mohican River, visited Cedar Point and enjoyed the music at Country Fest. Next up is a family cruise to Hawaii.
“This child deserves some paradise,” his mother, Angela Yoder, said.
Walkup’s family had no idea if they would ever be able to enjoy any of those things with him.
Walkup was seriously injured in June 2024 when a tree fell on him while helping his friend’s grandfather. His recovery journey includes a coma and relearning how to walk.
“He was taking down dead trees,” Walkup said. “It was too hot, and I was supposed to make sure he was alright.”
The plan was simple: The other person would cut down the trees, and Walkup would help him chop them up, then they would be on their way.
“I remember waking up and he was screaming. We were both screaming,” Walkup recalled. “I woke up with a tree on top of me. First thing I thought was I am ruining our (planned) camping trip.
“He told me not to move.”
That was the last thing he remembers.
Austin Walkup’s survival tale
When TJ Yoder got the call about his brother’s accident, he thought it was a prank.
“My brother was smashed by a tree?” the 22-year-old Massillon man said.
He raced to Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital. Walkup’s grandmother, Sue Walkup, also was there.
Angela Yoder was in New York visiting friends when she got the call.
“His grandmother and brother experienced the entire trauma while I sat in the airport begging for flights,” Yoder said.
TJ Yoder and his grandmother were the first to see Walkup. Hospital personnel were preparing him to be taken by medical helicopter to Cleveland Clinic Akron General.
Walkup had extensive damage to his body. His pelvic bone was shattered and he needed surgery on his bowel and bladder.
Four eight-inch screws and something they describe as a bike chain now hold together his pelvis. He received 38 pints of blood. And a clamp was placed on his aorta to stop the bleeding, family members said.
“I was so scared that he was going to pass away,” TJ Yoder said as tears filled his eyes. “They kept telling us his survival was slim to none. It was really scary. I’m glad we have him where he is now and he made it as far as he has.”
As she waited for a flight home, Angela Yoder called the hospital to get an update.
“They told me to expect the worst. They told me if I was a praying woman to get down on my knees and pray,” Angela Yoder said. “Believe me I did. I asked God to take mine and spare his (life). He has two sons − Grayson, 12, and 11-year-old Gavin − mine are grown.”
Walkup made it through the surgeries and was placed in a medically induced coma.
Learning to walk again on the road to recovery
Four days after he arrived, they brought him out of the coma.
“I was chained to the bed, and all I wanted was a drink,” Austin Walkup said.
He was restrained for his safety, his mom said. She added that he was put back into the coma because he “was a grizzly,” unable to understand what was going on.
In the early days of his recovery, Austin Walkup had ups and downs and unusual dreams.
He recalls seeing a light and saw his grandfather, Ken, who died in 2020.
“There was darkness, and then just light appeared,” he recalled. “He pushed me and told me it wasn’t my time.”
He was moved to Select Specialty Hospital in Akron, a critical illness recovery center, for six weeks.
His next journey took him to Sprenger Health Care Rose Lane Nursing and Rehabilitation in Jackson Township. For the next year, Austin Walkup worked to regain his strength and relearn things he once could do − including walking.
He initially could move only his arms and one foot.
Day after day, he worked with therapists at the center.
“They told us he most likely wouldn’t walk again,” his mom recalled. “They told us he wasn’t going to live, and we saw how that went. He told me he was going to walk. He worked his little butt off and this couldn’t be a prouder momma.”
Not only was he going to walk, Walkup said he couldn’t wait to get home to see his 15-year-old Australian shepherd named Maribel.
“I wanted to go home. I wanted to be with my dog,” he said.
Walkup didn’t realize the journey he had ahead of him. He broke his left leg and his right leg popped out of his hip socket. He had a badly bruised back.
“It was frustrating,” he said. “I just wanted to move this leg. Before I knew it, I was doing something.”
He smiles as he pulls up his shirt to show off his scars and the large divot in his chest.
It took him a year before he was able to go home and see his dog last summer. He spent the next year with Maribel, who recently died. He returned to Rose Lane last October after he became septic from a lithotripsy to remove kidney stones.
Despite the painful trek, Walkup hasn’t lost his sense of humor or his smile.
His brother started calling him Groot, like the a tree-like alien from “Guardians of the Galaxy.” So he got a Groot tattoo on his arm.
While at Country Fest, he posed under a sign that said beware of falling trees.
“We are a family that believes that if you don’t have laughter, how are you going to get through it?” Angela Yoder said.
“You can’t cry about everything you lost; you have to look at everything you still have,” Sue Walkup added. “He was seriously, seriously injured and he made it through. We have to thank God for everything he has given us.”
There is still work to do, Walkup said, but for now he will enjoy spending time with his kids, girlfriend Ashley, and his family.
“I just take one day at a time,” he said with a smile.
Reach Amy at amy.knapp@indeonline.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: ‘My brother was smashed by a tree?’ Massillon man’s recovery journey
Reporting by Amy L. Knapp, Massillon Independent / The Repository
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Amy L. Knapp, Massillon Independent | USA TODAY Network
