BOISE, Idaho — Fifteen-year-old James Campbell should be starting his sophomore year at Owyhee High School, but instead, he's in Salt Lake City at the Primary Children's Hospital, where he’s learning how to walk and talk again.
“He does dirt bike races. on May 21, he was in a race, his third race of the day, when he didn't come back on the track. He had flown off of his bike,” his cousin Dylann John said. “He was just knocked unconscious about 100 feet away from his bike.”
Campbell was in a coma -- he's is awake now -- but expected to be in the hospital for the next four months.
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“He had a grade 3 diffuse axonal brain injury and brain shearing from when he hit his head. So luckily, none of his bones were broken… Now we're just rebuilding that connection between his brain and his body so he can be himself again,” John said. “When I was 15, I spent the summer at the fair with my friends getting ready for my next high school year and it's been really difficult seeing such an active kid just having to rest and recover.”
John works at Dawson Taylor in Boise. On Tuesday, the coffee shop held a fundraiser to help Campbell and his family.
“Cognitively he's there, he knows he was in an accident, he knows the voices of family members,” John said. “His dog Peanut has been able to have a bunch of granted visits with him and that's been amazing.”
The family told KTVB he is resilient and determined to get back to being his daredevil self.
“He's able to smile again, he learned that through rehab, and he has been smiling ever since,” John said. “He's upset, but every day he chooses to work harder and at the end of every day, he's better than he was before so, he's killing it.”
Fifteen percent of the proceeds from the Dawson Taylor fundraiser will go to the family. You can also find the family’s GoFundMe here.
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