If you look close enough, you can almost see Him in his eyes.
Maybe that is wishful thinking.
Maybe that is the calming effect Marcus Sims’ words have on you as you discuss his fight to regain normalcy.
The more you look at him, though, you realize Sims never will be “normal” again because there has to be some of Him in him.
That has to be the explanation. Just look at a picture of the mangled shell of the Acura 3.2 TL. The entire passenger side of the car is crushed. The windshield is a cobweb of cracks. The airbags resemble two spent balloons too tired to put up a fight.
But fight is exactly what Sims, a rising senior at Victory Christian School, did to survive a two-vehicle wreck in late June.
In the nearly two months since the incident on Highway 45 Alternate at Tarlton Road, Sims has been in and out of the hospital, has visited the doctors’ office too many times, and has reflected on just how lucky he is to be alive.
Sims has been over it and over it in his mind. There is no explanation: He owes it all to Him.
“God,” Sims said when asked how he has managed to come back. “The doctors helped, but if it hadn’t have been for Him, I probably would have been gone.”
What happened?
Sims remembers little about the night of June 23.
People have told him about it, but it is no use. He can’t recall.
Sims left work, went home to talk to his father, and then departed intending to go to his grandmother’s house. He made it to the yield sign at the intersection. From there, everything went blank.
The wreck happened just after 8 p.m. and about five minutes from home. Sims doesn’t remember one pickup truck crashing into the side of his vehicle. He doesn’t recall another pickup truck avoiding his car.
All Sims remembers is the sound of the blades of the helicopter rotating to airlift him to the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo.
Sims discovered he suffered cracked ribs and significant damage to both of his lungs. He was sedated for an extended period of time as plastic surgeons repaired the damage to his face and allowed his body time to heal. Twice he had to be put on an oscillator, a system that assists patients in breathing.
“My faith has gotten a lot stronger when I realized He saved me,” Sims said.
Sims admits his faith wasn’t that strong before the wreck and that he wasn’t that close to God. But after going through his ordeal Sims feels closer to God. He said he talks to Him. He said he prays more often than he did before the accident. He can’t help but do it because it is something anyone would do if they felt they had been touched.
“I thank Him for keeping me here and for better health to come,” Sims said. “When I saw my car, it seemed like everything inside was destroyed but my part of the car. When I saw that, I knew it was God that kept me. My seat is still in place. The passenger side where the truck hit is destroyed. If somebody has been in there, they probably wouldn’t have made it.”
It’s sobering to think Sims’ cousin, could have been in the car with him. Sims said he and his cousin typically ride from work together, but Sims’ cousin left work early because he was going on vacation.
Sims also considered picking up his two cousins and his sister, but he didn’t.
“That’s a blessing I didn’t have anyone with me,” Sims said, “because they wouldn’t have made it.”
Sims doesn’t remember why he didn’t pick up his cousins and his sister.
The present
Sims would have been the starting quarterback at Victory Christian for his final year of high school.
A year ago, the 6-foot-3, 170-pounder matured into the role and helped the Eagles extend their winning streak to 30 games before they lost to Tuscaloosa Christian in the Christian Football Association championship game.
This year, Sims was going to be an experienced leader on a group that looked to reload after the graduation of several key players.
All that changed June 23.
Sims is eating and talking better. He has been out of the hospital a little more than two weeks. He spends most of his days at home, sitting up and resting. He still has a feeding tube in his stomach that he will have for a few more weeks. A bandage remains over his throat to protect the area where a tracheostomy, or trach, was inserted to help him breathe.
A tracheostomy is a procedure in which a doctor makes a small hole in a patient’s neck directly into the windpipe (trachea). Through this hole, a tracheostomy tube, which is nearly three inches long, is inserted from the surface of the neck into the windpipe.
Sims won’t play football this year. He said he feels stronger every day, but that doctors advised him to take six months to allow his body to heal. They even suggested he not play basketball.
Missing football has been tough, but the prospect of not playing basketball tugs at Sims. Even though he has lost nearly 30 pounds since the accident, you can tell he is eager to get back to training so he can be back on the court at least for some part of the season.
“I am working on it,” Sims said of his effort to regain his weight and his strength. “It is hard, but things happen for a reason.”
If Sims’ isn’t able to work his way back, Sims’ father, Earl Blunt, has urged him to play baseball, if only to have a chance to compete in something in his senior year.
“He’s a fighter,” Blunt said. “But putting trust in the good Lord, having faith and with a lot of praying, that is what brought him out of it. It is an experience I never will forget.
“I didn’t see the car until he left Tupelo for good, then I went down to Crawford to look at it. I couldn’t look at it anymore. The way his seat was and the car, I was thinking, ‘How could anybody survive this?’ I knew the good Lord had His hand on him, and never did take it off.”
Sims expects plenty of questions when he returns to school in a few weeks. It won’t bother him to talk about the accident, even though some people might wonder if he is OK with it. He also doesn’t mind looking at pictures of the wreck. In some way, Sims’ ability to discuss everything may be part of the healing process and a reminder for everyone who gets into a car to be careful.
“My grandfather (Bobby McCarter) tells me I am a blessing every day,” Sims said. “I just look at it like He saved me because He has a purpose for me in life. If I can tell people about what happened to me maybe it can inspire people to keep God first.”
The future
Sims knows something is coming. He just doesn’t know what it is or when it will be presented to him. The way Sims sees it, he has to be ready because he feels blessed to have been saved and, in some way, feels obliged to answer the challenge He will give him.
Sims intends to enter the Army after he graduates from high school. He isn’t sure if that is his calling. He doesn’t know if he will be “called” to be a pastor.
Those questions will have to wait.
“When I am home and I think about it, I don’t know what He has in store for me in life, but I am pretty sure it is good because he saved me from that accident,” Sims said. “I look at life different and how valuable it is because I almost lost my life two times in the (critical care unit in the hospital). Like I said, He was with me the whole way. I am a walking miracle.”
Sims looks forward to the day he is back to his pre-accident weight. He is anxious for the scars from the glass that shredded his face and battered the right side of his body to be gone. He anticipates being able to drive again.
Those things will come.
Sims is just as anxious to thank all of the people who prayed for him and had him in their thoughts. He can’t thank his mother, LaShanda McCarter, and his family members enough for all of the hours they spent with him in the hospital and for all of the times they tried to make him laugh.
“It has been the hardest thing I have had to go through,” McCarter said. “It makes you more thankful and appreciative of life. It makes you pray more. It is easy for me
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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