Joe’s Fundraiser for Shepherd Center

“Witnesses said Lopez was on Old Archer Road when his scooter hit the median and he went airborne.”

“Police said the scooter landed on top of Lopez.”

“Lopez was unconscious when police arrived and was hospitalized in critical condition.”

May 22, 2012 I was in an accident in which I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury and that left me in a coma for 18 days. After beating my first negative prognosis by waking up from a Glasgow Coma Scale 3 (lowest possible score, totally unresponsive, mortality rate of ≈100%) I was sent to Shepherd Center Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Rehabilitation in Atlanta, GA with a bunch more negative prognoses... never to walk again, never to return to college, never to be able to hold a career, will be dependent on family to care for him for rest of life, just to name a few. I have leveraged all of the tools, exercises and workarounds I learned during my therapies at Shepherd Center to graduate with my degree in Finance from the University of Florida, to have a rewarding commercial banking career with one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and to lead a very happy life with my beautiful and kind-hearted fiancé.

The Shepherd Center is a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 hospital whose mission is to help people with a temporary or permanent disability caused by injury or disease rebuild their lives with hope. I will be running my very first marathon October 10th to raise awareness and money for Shepherd Center. Nothing in this world would mean more to me than being able to give something back to this incredible place that has given me my quality of life. Thank you so much for donating and for sharing my GoFundMe with others! 

Learn more at shepherd.org.