It was July 24th, 2014 when Russ Evans' life nearly changed forever.
"[My friend and I] turned onto a gravel road and the driver lost control and over corrected and the truck rolled over and I was ejected from the truck," recalled the 25-year-old from Bloomfield, Iowa.
Russ says it took a few hours before anyone showed up to help him and his friend. While he was laying on the ground:
"I couldn't feel my legs, then my arms started to go."
By the morning of July 25th, 2014, Russ was at the hospital in Iowa City. However, doctors prepared his parents for the worst. A few days later, Russ was transported to Genesis Health System in Davenport.
"His family had mentioned when he came that he was not likely to walk again," explained Dr. Conway Chin, Medical Director of Physical Medicine and Rehab at Genesis. "Russ was bed-bound. He couldn't roll in bed. He wasn't able to reach down to his lower body to put on his pants and his shoes and his socks. He had a very soft voice. He couldn't project very well. He was just starting to eat. He had a feeding tube for an extended period of time that was removed shortly before he came here."
"I had a shattered vertebrae in my neck and I dislocated a vertebrae in my lower back," added Russ. "First, I was a quadriplegic so I couldn't feel anything from my neck down. Then, before surgery, I was a paraplegic. I got rods in both my neck and my back."
Yet less than three months after the accident, Russ - who wrestled in high school and a little bit in college - can move his feet, fingers, and arms. In fact, he will be able to leave Genesis on Friday, October 3rd, 2014 walking on his own.
"Dan Gable mentioned that once you wrestle, everything else in life is easy so now it's just second nature to keep going," said Russ.
"It isn't as remarkable that he made the recovery, it's that he made it so quickly," explained Dr. Chin.
How? Well, within hours of the accident, Russ became part of a clinical trial for a drug that may be a breakthrough for treating spinal injuries.
"There was no downside to it and they're closing the study sooner because they're having great results," said Russ.
"We never talked about his recovery in terms of what would turn out, we kind of just said - do the best you can and you do the best you can and we'll see what you get," added Dr. Chin.
What Russ has gotten is a chance to make medical history. Although he won't know for another few months if he received the pill or the placebo in the study, he says he's pretty sure he got the pill.
"The chances of me not getting the drug is pretty slim at this point with all the results I've been getting so I'm excited to see what's going on and happy to be maybe a statistic to help others," said Russ.
Russ said he is looking forward to fishing when he gets home to Bloomfield. He will continue his road to recovery there, with the support of his friends and family.
"He's a really remarkable young man," said Dr. Chin. "He has impressed me with his hard work ethic."
"He's gotten a lot of good family support and I think that's a big part of people's recovery that we don't focus on. It's hard to do it by yourself so he's having good support from his family, his parents, his sisters and even though he lives far away, they were able to be here quite often and I think they should be recognized for that, too."
Genesis and University of Iowa Hospitals were two of 70 centers across the country that participated in the clinical research study.