Thankful People: How Chaffee's Seger Ruiz found a new perspective on life following car crash

Thankful People is an annual series highlighting Southeast Missourians who have overcome adversity and developed a new perspective on life. The series is sponsored by Saint Francis Healthcare System. Read more Thankful People stories from this year and the Southeast Missourian archive.

Seger Ruiz doesn’t remember getting rear-ended, but that moment changed his life.

On the night of Sept. 14, 2023, 19-year-old Ruiz and his girlfriend were on their way back to Chaffee driving on Nash Road. The two were heading back from the SEMO District Fair after a night of fun, but that is where the fun ended.

The vehicle in front of them had slowed to turn and the vehicle behind them rear-ended them resulting in a three-vehicle crash. Ruiz remembers waking up from the accident and not being able to move anything before being moved. He said he was told he was talking to those at the scene but does not remember this, saying he blacked out.

Ruiz woke up at Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, while those around him were talking about him, but not to him. He was told he had to be transported by helicopter to St. Louis because of the severity of his injuries.

“I don't remember getting on the helicopter, but I remember being in the air and talking to the flight nurses and everything. The next thing I remember after that, I was laying in the operating room,” he said.

Ruiz was flown to Saint Louis University Hospital where he was taken immediately to the operating room. In the operating room, doctors fused his C5 and C6 vertebrae because he had a dislocated C4 and had fractured his C5. He had also fractured his T9 and T10 vertebrae, which they let heal naturally.

Ruiz and his mother, Angie, stayed at Saint Louis University Hospital for two weeks. He said it was a very rough time for him being on lots of pain medicine. Day four was a turning point after he refused a tracheotomy and was thankful he did not end up needing it.

“It kind of got better after that point. But it was rough. I was in a lot of pain. They couldn't really manage that very well. I was maxed out on basically all my pain meds. And then with a spinal cord injury, when it first happens, your body almost shuts down. It's getting shocked. It doesn't know what to do. So I was on, I think it was 12 different medicines to kind of compensate for everything. I was on constant oxygen because my diaphragm was paralyzed at that point, so I wasn't breathing right. They tried to sit me up to start therapy and start moving me. I was just in too much pain, I couldn't do anything,” Ruiz said about his time in St. Louis.

While Ruiz was away from home trying to recover from the incident, home came to him with friends and family. He said his mother barely left his side and there were almost always multiple people waiting to see him in the waiting room, from his girlfriend and aunt to his friends from home.

“They told me at one point, there were over 30 people in the waiting room waiting to come see me. They had to send people out because there were too many people. So there were almost always multiple people waiting to see me,” he said.

After two weeks in St. Louis, Ruiz and his mother were told he was approved to go to Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago, a physical medicine and rehabilitation research hospital. The hospital has only two floors of spinal cord patients and a long waiting list to get in. Ruiz was told his age played a big part in getting him into the center since he was so young.

Ruiz stayed in Chicago for six months and said the facilities where he did his therapy were amazing with the state-of-the-art equipment he was able to use. He said he also is signed up to do the clinical trials they hold there.

“Great therapists, great doctors were there. Medically, it was a very good place to be. And I am, I am very blessed that I went there,” Ruiz said.

Ruiz was able to return home to Chaffee on March 29 after six months of being away from his support system. The town set up a welcome parade, which Ruiz did not know about. Firefighters and police officers escorted the Ruiz parade down Main and Yoakum streets, while residents held handwritten signs, cheered and clapped for his return home. The parade ended at the Chaffee High School activity center, where a small reception was held for friends and family to see and talk to him.

“It was fun. I wouldn't say it was overwhelming, but I kind of knew Morgan (Swinford, Chaffee High School teacher) was going to do something, but I didn't really know what. I didn't expect a parade. I didn't expect, basically, the entire town to come out and welcome me home. I enjoyed that, then they had a little thing at the activity center at the school for people to kind of just talk to me, which was good, it was very heartwarming,” Ruiz said.

Ruiz has been back home for about eight months, still attending physical and occupational therapy to help him adjust to his new daily life. At the beginning of his therapy, he had lots of short-term goals such as being able to hold his head up after three months in a neck brace. Now he said he is focusing on building strength everywhere, whether in his core or his legs.

“I can stand, I can support myself. So we're doing kind of modified body weight squats, almost. And then they put me in this A-frame, this harness and this A-frame to kind of keep me from falling. We're working on being able to support myself on one leg and kind of shifting my weight to be able to start walking again. There have been times where I'm kind of initiating a first step and different stuff, but I'm not walking just yet, not yet,” Ruiz said.

Other than the physical changes Ruiz has had to go through, he is also learning how to deal with the mental and emotional toll of it. He said it is draining, but has gotten better once he realized he was not a burden to everyone.

“I always have that thought in the back of my mind, like, you know, people stare at me, you're viewed differently. So always having that in your head kind of sucks really, but after a while, you realize people don't really mean to. Everybody wants to help whether it's strangers or a stranger holding the door open for me or the way my mom helps me out,” Ruiz said. “You realize that it's not necessarily a burden. At first, I was like, ‘I'm going to be a burden for the rest of my life. Everybody's going to have to help me do everything, nobody's going to want to, but I have to ask.’ It's like a sense of calm to know that everybody wants to help. So I get that. It's like a weight off my shoulders, not necessarily physically, but emotionally.”

Having the people and support system he has helps tremendously. Especially on days when he doesn’t want to get better but knows he has to keep going for those supporting him.

Ruiz said looking back, the person he was before the wreck would have given up by now. He was not necessarily going through the motions but was not living to the fullest and wished he would have done certain things.

“At the beginning, I didn't want to do it. At that point I was like, ‘I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I don't want to be that person that has to be taken care of, needs help all the time.’ I think with time, I realized, like now, this is what I was dealt with. I'm not just going to sit and do nothing for the rest of my life. I'm going to keep going and get a job, have a career. I'm going to go out and do most of the same things that I was going to do before I got hurt. I'm just going to be in a chair doing it, at least for a little bit. There was a point where I accepted I was in a chair, accepted that this is what I had to do,” Ruiz said.

Ruiz plans to attend college next summer, starting on his general electives while he figures out what he wants to do next.

“This is a cliche, but don’t take anything for granted,” Ruiz said about his advice and what he has learned from this experience. “Don't put stuff off just because you don't think you want to do it, or don't be scared to do certain things, because you never know when you're not going to be able to do them again.”