Tom

When Tom Eubank was a student at Ole Miss, he and his best friend William spent the weekend at William’s family home in Yazoo City. That Sunday, the young men began the drive back to Ole Miss in separate cars. Tom exited off of one highway onto another, not knowing that highway crews had sprinkled the exit ramps with gravel due to a previous snowfall. Hitting the gravel at a high speed Tom lost control of his car, which flipped end over end, landing more than 50 yards away.

William traveling behind watched in horror as Tom’s body catapulted through the open sun-roof, landing 20 feet from the car. William thought his friend was dead.

In fact, Tom’s neck broke, nearly severing his spinal cord. After being airlifted to The MED’s Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center, doctors removed his spleen and fused the bones connecting his neck and spine back together.

Tom remembers The MED nurse saying she “refused to let me die. I was too young and she was going to make sure I survived and lived the life I was meant to. I believed her, and I think that’s part of why I’m here today – that and the fact that The MED has one of the top trauma teams in the nation – hands down.”

"If it weren’t for The MED, I wouldn’t be here today, and life without The MED would mean countless lives lost each year. It could have easily been you or someone you love that hit the gravel on the exit ramp that afternoon.”

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