Holt grad crosses stage after 2020 crash, years of traumatic surgeries

High school graduation is a huge milestone for any young person, but Jonathon Myles and his family are especially elated because they didn’t know whether he’d live to see it after he was in a devastating car wreck in July 2020.

“We were going down Jack Warner Parkway and there was another car switching lanes back and forth, then I don’t know what else happened,” Myles said.

The next thing he remembers, he said, was waking up in a hospital surrounded by strangers.

“I couldn’t talk,” he said. “I was getting mad because I was talking to people and they couldn’t hear me and they couldn’t understand what I was saying.”

Myles escaped the crash with his life, but it left him with a brain injury, extreme damage to his throat and extensive injuries down the right side of his body.

Since then, he’s undergone nearly 40 operations, including intricate brain and throat surgeries that took their own toll.

“I had to learn how to walk,” he said. “I had to learn how to talk. I have to learn how to live again.”

It’s been nearly three years since Jonathon’s mother, Tiffany Myles, got the call every parent dreads.

“The day before the accident, I was coming home from work and clearly heard those words, ‘It is well,’ ” Tiffany said. “Just coming down McFarland Boulevard. And I did not know what was well, but I remember saying ‘OK God, I don’t know what you are talking about, but I know you are giving me a message.’ ”

That wound up being the message mother and son share to everyone they can.

“For all the people out there who just wake up in the morning and go ahead with your life, I’m going to need you to thank God in the morning, because you don’t have to have a life,” Jonathon Myles said. “Just pray. Prayer makes everything better. It makes everything worth it.”

Despite every obstacle, every surgery, every reason others would have quit, Jonathon Myles instead fueled his dream of graduating with his class from Holt High School this year.

“He was so determined that he sold his Xbox because he didn’t want any distractions,” Tiffany Myles said. “Watching him walk across that stage Thursday night, I have no words. I am in awe of God’s goodness and his grace and his mercy and his love and how he just keeps on proving that he is God. And he uses things like this to show that he is not short on miracles, even during this day and time. It was like watching a living miracle when he walked across that stage and got his diploma.”

Jonathon Myles said he hopes to continue inspiring others with his story by finishing college and one day becoming a physical therapist.