Lakeside Student Moved for Rehabilitation, Condition Continues to Improve

Here's a brief update on Thomas Sowell, the 15-year-old Lakeside High School student who suffered a severe brain injury in a snowboarding accident in western North Carolina on Jan. 30. It's courtesy of the blog, Pray for Thomas S., which has been updated at least once every day with notes from Thomas' mother, Virginia, and his father, Jim. Here's one posted this afternoon.

Thomas has undergone lots of tests – physical, mental, etc. This morning he was awakened at 7:00 for a blood draw, 7:30 for a shower (which he was able to do standing up) and off to therapy. He was able to WALK on his own. I have been cleared to walk with him now. He wears a gate-belt around his waist just in case he should stumble. So far he's walking well – even up the stairs. He's a little slow and of course tired, but he's scoring well on the cognitive tests as well. Miracles abound. Prayers are being answered, but we still cherish your prayers for Thomas.

So, things seem to be getting better for Thomas, which is great news. He was transferred from Grady Hospital's Marcus Stroke & Neuroscience Center to the Shepherd Center, a rehabilitation facility here in Atlanta. The center also had a great video about Thomas produced, which you can watch here. Patch , and he had great things to say about Thomas' recovery.

One more note: North Druid Hills-Briarcliff Patch is still in its infancy. (We launched Dec. 10 for those of you who randomly discovered us and wondered where they heck we came from.) But the several stories we've written about Thomas have probably been the most popular on the site – right up there with stories about the local school redistricting and closures issue, which, obviously, has a lot of people engaged to say the least. I checked the site's data this morning, and several thousand people have read about Thomas. Pretty incredible, and I'm sure many more have seen or read about him in other local media. A great testament to the community.