Mack's Story

From the time he started school, Mack Hudson had a rod and reel or a turkey call in his hands...

From the time he started school, Mack Hudson had a rod and reel or a turkey call in his hands. So when he returned to high school after an L1 spinal cord injury at the age of 16, his primary focus wasn’t on books. After the car accident that left him paralyzed, Mack was more interested in getting back out in the woods and on the lake. And it didn’t take long for him to start doing just that.

Now a college student, Mack is as active as he ever was, thinking nothing about scooting up the ladder of a deer stand backwards using his hands. “If you let things not being accessible stop you, you will not live life,” he said.

He’s also game for spur-of-the-moment overnight road trips with friends.“I used to worry about how I could do that, but now I really don’t care. If I have to, I don’t mind getting out of my chair, sliding across the floor, and sitting on the bottom of a shower stall to take a shower,” he said.

He credits strong family support and a positive rehab experience for his no-nonsense approach to his injury. “I was one of the younger and more mobile patients in rehab, so they let me do a lot more since I was willing and had a good attitude,” he said. It wasn’t unusual, for example, to find  Mack and one of the recreational therapists riding four-wheelers in the hospital parking garage.

He’s also picked up his own strategies along the way. “They teach you the textbook way in rehab, but there is a lot more to living life. It’s kind of like going to school and then getting a job – there are a whole lot more efficient and convenient ways to do things,” he explained.

Though he lost his mother, Julie, to a heart attack two years after his injury, Mack has refused to let her death defeat him. With a strong faith, and a large network of extended family and friends, he continues on. When he’s not at home or in class these days, chances are that he and his dog, Abby, are on the road. “At first I thought that driving with hand controls would be too much work. Yet I put 25,000 miles on the jeep the first year and have been going ever since.”