Nov. 24 was the most thankful Thanksgiving ever for the family of Picayune’s Gavin Miller.

Just a week before, a hit-and-run driver crashed into the 17-year-old as he was walking to a school bus stop.

A resulting head injury left his mother, Hesper Miller, worrying: “Is he going to be like himself afterwards?”

“He’d wake up, and it would just be a blank stare,” she said. “Thanksgiving day was his first good day. He was awake and alert and I said: ‘There he is, that’s my kid.’ He was making little jokes, and I was so happy.”

On Oct. 24, Jody Jones of Flora added irony to injury.

While trying to remove an unsafe tree stand, he fell 22 feet to the ground.

The impact crushed his right heel and fractured his right femur, pelvis and some vertebra in his spine.

Still, Jones feels fortunate. “I don’t know how I landed like I did. I should have landed flat on my back or head,” he said. “The Lord was watching out for me is all I can say.”

While studying to be a physical therapist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Health-Related Professions, Annie Campbell heard nothing but good things about Methodist Rehabilitation Center’s student program.

“I heard over and over again that it was such a great clinical experience,” Campbell said.

 So she says she jumped at the chance to enroll. And now, after 12 weeks working with and learning from the staff of MRC’s spinal cord injury program, she says it’s more than lived up to the hype.

Hailly Bernard’s story could be headlined: Mother Nature vs. Mother-To-Be.

In the wee hours of Jan. 11, the eight-months-pregnant 18-year-old was sent flying by the force of an EF-3 tornado in Drew.

The experience earned her the nickname Dorothy from her physician at Methodist Rehabilitation Center and a ton of respect from her therapy team.

It’s been over seven years since Stevelyn Robinson was paralyzed in a school bus crash, and he hasn’t stopped fighting. He continues to progress through regular physical therapy at Methodist Outpatient Therapy in Ridgeland.

With the help of a walker, the Winona native walked across the stage at his 2016 graduation from Holmes Community College. Now a student at the University of Mississippi, he is working hard so he can do the same again.