A Juneau high schooler who sustained a traumatic brain injury two years ago will be walking across the stage at the Juneau-Douglas High School graduation today.
It’s a moment Henry Cheng and his family weren’t sure would happen.
“The expectation would be he wouldn’t have functional movement because of the injury and be bedridden,” his mother, Kris Cheng, said.
Henry sustained the brain injury after falling down a large cliffside out the road in April 2016. He was medevaced to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center and was unconscious for more than two weeks.
His medical recovery has been an arduous journey. After receiving care in Seattle for more than three months, he returned to Juneau and lived in Wildflower Court, an in-patient medical care facility. He remained in the assisted living home for four months before moving back into his family’s home on Fritz Cove.
Henry re-enrolled at Juneau-Douglas High School while at Wildflower. Paraeducator Mike Garcia, one of his soccer coaches at JDHS and longtime athletic trainer, has been working hand-in-hand with him since that time as an aide, teaching Henry motor skills.
Kris Cheng said she knew of Garcia from her time as a paraeducator at Auke Bay Elementary. She said it was important for her that her son was paired with someone who knew him before that accident. In his first two years of high school, Cheng took advanced placement classes and was at the top of his class. He was a stand out on the soccer field, and well-known in Juneau’s music community. Henry has played violin since age 7.
“When you’re in a position like Henry, I think some people might take the approach like, ‘Oh, it would be easier if I do it,’ rather than push him,” Kris Cheng said. “Especially given that Henry was having a hard time communicating, somebody might approach him with kid gloves and just want to make life easier on him. Well, Mike knew his work ethic and knew better than anybody how he could push Henry and at the same time be cognizant of Henry’s limitations.”
Cheng has applied a stong work ethic in his intensive speech, physical and occupational therapy schedule, Garcia said.
“Bottom line is I don’t know who would’ve been as devoted to his own recovery as Henry,” Garcia said.
This year, Henry enrolled in two senior-level classes. Friend and former teammate Ben Campbell, who shared an Algebra II/Trig class with Cheng last year, has been in awe of his friend’s progress.
“We’ll tell a joke or something and he’ll laugh,” Campbell said. “He’s definitely there, he’s involved in the conversation.”
Throughout his junior year at JDHS, Henry used a wheelchair to get around. He started using a walker in the summer of his senior year. He will not be using a walker to walk across the JDHS stage on Sunday, though. Henry practiced walking across the stage earlier this week, with his dad, Vince, and two other physical therapists watching him from a close distance.
“I see it as a culmination of all of his hard work,” Kris Cheng said. “He has never wavered in his desire to walk and regain every bit of what he had back and so this is another big step in that direction.”
Cheng will have just a half credit of history to finish up in the fall to officially graduate. He will then attend Coastline Community College in Newport Beach, California which offers a specialized program for individuals with acquired brain injuries to regain their cognitive independence.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
