Every year, more than 50 million Americans will seek out therapy services for an injury or for help recovering from a surgery. Each journey is unique to the patient, but the goal is to help recover strength, mobility and improve a patient's quality of life. For Kahlor Hindman of Pierre, that means working with an extensive team of specialist after a severe motorcycle accident.
“It's been remarkable just how quickly he's been able to progress over really the past five months since we've been working together,” said Blake Dean, DPT with Avera St. Mary’s Therapy Services.
They may not seem like much, but for Kahlor, these small steps are giant leaps from where he was last August.
“After my accident, I had a traumatic brain injury, broken wrist, broken pelvis, broken collarbone, broken sternum, and a torn LCL,” said Hindman.
Kaylor has endured multiple surgeries to repair his broken body and faces a long road to recovery. Thankfully, he’s had a team of therapists behind him every step of the way.
“With physical therapy, I do my walking, strengthening my hip,” said Hindman
“We’re just kind of rebuilding from the ground up and from square one,” said Dean.
“And speech, just kind of reading stuff,” said Hindman.
"So we worked a lot on his normal voicing without the tenseness that he was trying to push the air out to make himself heard,” said Jackie Protexter, a speech therapist with Avera St. Mary’s Therapy Services.
“And just going over different things to help my brain,” said Hindman.
“So the things that he's working on in occupational therapy, we really focus a lot on that left arm. Just coordination, functional use of it, being able to reach and to hold things and to use it in everyday life,” said Carrie Larson OTR/L with Avera St. Mary’s Therapy Services.
For any young person, a setback like this can be debilitating. But as Kaylor recovers his physical strength, it's his mental fortitude over the past five months that is most inspiring.
“He really has driven his own therapy. From day one, it was what do you think is important? What do you want to work on? And from there, we ran with it,” said Larson.
“It's like a speed bump. Like, you've got to get over the speed bump and go on past it. It's definitely something that's gonna slow you down, but not completely take everything away. And the way I look at it is just, it's not like a failure, but it's just a learning lesson to help everything,” said Hindman.
“When Kahlor sets his mind to something, there's nothing that's going to stop him. The kid has a drive that not a lot of people, if put in his position, I don't think that very many people would have the resolve that Kahlor does."
That resolve and determination is infectious. When cancer came back into Jackie's life, she discovered a new strength and drive thanks to Kaylor.
“I honestly thought, you know what, if Kahlor can do it, I can do it. If a 21-year-old is gonna come and do some of the silly things that we have him do here and never complain and always have a smile on his face and always be more than willing to go above and beyond, then I can do it too,” said Protexter.
There are still more appointments to make and milestones to break, but Kahlor is already making plans for his life outside of therapy.
“I want to become an entrepreneur of my own gym and just help out. Like, now I can help out everybody that is going through the situation that I'm going to, but now I have like a reason and a purpose to doing it,” said Hindman.
"I'm always building new goals for him as he is too,” said Protexter.
“His motivation has definitely gotten him as far as he is and it's going to continue to take him places,” said Larson.
Avera rehabilitation teams are found across the region and provide a broad range of services for patients allowing them the opportunity to heal and recover closer to home.
Learn more about Avera therapy services.
