Although sidelined, the Bellbrook High School soccer team captain continues to attend practices and suit up for games.
“It’s a team I played a part in making successful and I want to see them be successful,” he said.
On an icy Sunday morning, his parents, Mark and Jenness Sigman of Bellbrook, got that call all parents fear.
Driving to church, he’d lost control, hitting a parked car at a slow rate of speed. His seat belt was buckled and his airbag inflated, but Payne’s head bounced off of his side window. He was in a coma for 13 days and spent 72 days in the hospital, first at Miami Valley Hospital’s Trauma Center and then Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.
“We were very lucky in his recovery. We never had a step backwards and that’s not normal,” Jenness said, adding that still the road to recovery has not been easy.
When people see Payne and observe his obvious improvements “they think it’s just happening. They don’t realize how much hard work is going into it on his part,” she said.
Payne continues to get better with the help of his family, which includes a sister, Shelby, a student at Capital University in Columbus.
“It has been a very concentrated family effort. Mark and I attend all his therapy sessions to learn as much as we can. We then help Payne with his exercises to make sure that they are being executed properly,” Jenness said.
“Most people don’t understand. They think of it like a broken leg or something. They think that it will heal, that you just need to rest or whatever. It doesn’t work that way,” said Payne, who is aware of the curious stares he sometimes gets.
“I’d rather have people just ask … I don’t mind telling them what happened. I’d rather that than them just making assumptions,” he said, referring to a common false assumption that physical impairments and cognitive impairments go hand in hand.
The Sigmans attribute much of Payne’s recovery success to his pre-accident work ethic of working hard and not giving up.
“I can’t stop and think about it and say ‘This is really hard.’ I have to just slowly keep going … I see it as my only option,” he said.
There is a two-year window in which the majority of brain injury recovery occurs, according to the Sigmans, and they are determined to make the most of that time.
In the meantime, Payne said he just wants to be treated “like I would have been before.”
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