Elan

Carol Ashter (now Braslow) lived and worked in Memphis, but because of a business trip she found herself lying awake in the middle of the night in a Puerto Rican hotel room feeling an unexplained anxiousness. Some internal force told her to cancel the shopping trip she was supposed to take the next day. Then the phone rang and that sense of anxiety that was unexplained became very real. This was news no mother wants to hear.

Minutes earlier Carol’s son Elan was riding in a car that hit a pole while making a turn at Mendenhall Road and Poplar Ave. The force was so strong, it hurled him through the windshield. Rescue crews responded and had Elan airlifted to the Elvis Presely Memorial Trauma Center at The MED.

A native New Yorker, Carol had no idea about The MED and worried if it was the right hospital for her son. Carol works for the Peabody Hotel Group. As she scrambled to make arrangements to fly back to Memphis, the Belz family assured her that Elan was in the right place. What they may not have realized is that The MED’s Traumatic Brain Injury service treats more severe and catastrophic brain injuries than any level-one trauma center in the nation.

Days following the surgery Elan slowly began to emerge from his coma.

“The care he got in the trauma center was amazing,” Carol recalls. “Most of the time he was there he had a dedicated nurse. One nurse per patient is an impressive level of care.”

Elan spent about 10 days in trauma care and a total of three weeks at The MED before being transferred to a long term-rehab facility.

Nearly 13 months later, Elan was released from rehab and able to walk and talk.

Today the 6’ 3” Elan can drive and work. A titanium plate protects the side of his head where his skull was removed.

Click here to give to the Elvis Presely Memorial Trauma Center.