Austin Smith '16 Recruiting Profile

Austin C. Smith, 18

Montrose Area High School, Pennsylvania

It is sixth grade, the fourth inning, and I’m sitting behind the plate waiting for the pitch to come in. I signal one, for a fast ball. The pitcher steps back into the pocket, winds up and throws the pitch. The batter swings and it deflects off the bat straight into my face, between my eyes. I stand up quick, blinking my eyes rapidly, spin around, face the umpire, and sit back down ready for the next pitch. I blacked out for three hours after that.

I was air lifted immediately to Geisinger Hospital in Danville, PA. As time moved on, I started to become unresponsive. On the way in the helicopter, the doctor noticed fluid coming out of my right ear. He stated I had cerebral fluid leaking from my head. They did a cat scan and I had a crack in my skull. It wasn’t looking good for me.

The doctors set me up in a room and were doing several tests each day on my head. On the second day I was there, not counting that night, my cerebral fluid leak stopped. They did a test and saw no fluid leak, and the crack in my skull was gone, nowhere to be found. I left the hospital three days later.

From this, I’ve been called the miracle child. The people from my home town were praying for me, and God did me a great favor in saving my life. From what the doctors were saying, I wasn’t going to make it with a cracked skull and cerebral fluid leaking from my ears. I suffer short term memory loss from this accident, and everyday events are affected because of my memory loss. My school has never been the same. If this didn’t happen to me I’m 100 percent sure my grades throughout school would be better and my SAT scores would be higher.   Baseball still scares me to this day.

Even with all of my struggles, this accident has shaped me into being the hard-working, motivated person I am today.  I’m proud of myself for maintaining average grades in college prep classes because this injury has been a real struggle.  I wish I could change the past, but not my present self or who I know I will become in the future.