Texas fathers bring hope to other families after sons' brain injuries

JD Hartman "was like any other kid," said his father, John Hartman. "He played soccer, hung out with the guys and rode his bike."

The 11-year-old also was a good swimmer, Hartman said.

In 2008, just weeks after his parents put in a pool at their Circle C neighborhood house in Southwest Austin, JD was found unconscious in the pool in water he could stand up in. They still don't know exactly what happened.

Five days into what would become months of hospital stays, JD's parents were told that based on scans of JD's brain, they might want to consider withdrawing care and letting him die.

"Have you ever seen a miracle?" John Hartman remembers telling the doctor. "We're not doing that."

Luke Siegel loved the New Orleans Saints and loved to practice sports as much as play them, said his father, Tim Siegel. "He loved to help others. He cared about others at a very young age."

When Luke was 9, he was at a friend's house in Lubbock playing around a golf cart when it rolled over him and crushed his chest. He was in cardiac arrest for seven minutes before he was revived. Doctors told his parents he would never open his eyes or use his voice or limbs.

His parents didn't accept that. "I knew I was going to do everything in my power," Tim Siegel said.

Both dads set up foundations to help pay the costs of care that insurance didn't cover — outfitting their homes to create an accessible space; buying a van with a wheelchair lift; and getting stem cell treatments, laser therapy, hyperbaric chambers, and speech, physical and occupational therapies.

Hope 4 JD and Team Luke both had a singular mission: To make their sons' lives better in hopes that with time, with therapy, with love, their sons would improve.

That mission soon began to change when they met other families of children with brain injuries. About 3.2% of all children have had a traumatic brain injury or concussion, according to 2022 data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Many of those injuries happen in summer when kids are in and around pools and other bodies of water, using bikes and scooters or motorized vehicles such as golf carts and four-wheelers, or riding in cars.

Since 2011, what is now Team Luke Hope for Minds has donated $2.9 million to help families in 47 states. Last year, it provided $854,535: $522,947 in financial assistance to families; $126,893 in support services, including support groups; and $204,695 in education, including its annual brain injury conference for families.

Forming Team Luke Hope for Minds

When Ronda Johnson first heard about JD's accident, she knew of the Hartmans only from Clayton Elementary, where both families sent their children. Yet, after the accident, she felt drawn to the family. "God was stirring in my heart," she said. She offered to watch JD's sisters while JD was still hospitalized. She started helping with fundraisers.

When it came time to form the Hope 4 JD foundation in 2011, John Hartman asked her to be the executive director. Johnson already had a job, but she felt that this was what "God wanted me to do."

She was the foundation's sole employee in 2015 when Luke had his accident in Lubbock. Johnson reached out to Luke's mom, Jenny. By then Hope 4 JD had expanded to raise money for other families and provide support groups for those families. The Siegels never applied for the help Hope 4 JD was offering, but Jenny Siegel did tell Johnson she should talk to Tim Siegel, who was setting up a foundation for Luke.

Johnson and Tim Siegel talked, and he showed up in Austin the next day to have breakfast with Johnson. She showed him the organization's brochure, the application for assistance and a resource guide. Her focus was to help the families "and love on them," Johnson said.

Siegel, who had been the tennis coach at Texas Tech University, had the connections to people in the sports world and the zest to raise money. He also wanted his foundation to help families not just in Texas but across the United States.

By the end of breakfast, they had agreed they needed to merge the organizations, and they did so in 2018.

"Luke's injury has now helped families all over the country," Tim Siegel said. "Being a parent with a child with a brain injury is isolating. You need people who understand what you are going through."

Helping more families

Some of those families live in Austin.

Just a month shy of his 15th birthday, Joaquin Machado was riding his bicycle home from McDonald's in July 2022. He hit a patch of gravel on Live Oak Street in South Austin and flipped onto two parked cars and then the ground. He was wearing flipflops, which didn't allow him to stop the bike, and he didn't have a helmet. He cracked his skull open.

After having surgeries to reduce the swelling in his brain and being in a coma for a month, Joaquin was lucky and started to regain what he had lost. His parents, Joey and Lana Machado, though, had stopped working temporarily to care for Joaquin. It was like having "the rug pulled out from under you," Joey Machado said.

A social worker at Dell Children's Medical Center connected the family to Team Luke Hope for Minds. The Machados were able to apply for financial assistance and had two months of mortgage payments taken care of. "It gave us a lot of peace of mind," Joey Machado said.

The "love on their family" concept has continued long after Joaquin left the hospital and learned how to talk, walk and swallow again. The family has been attending support groups for people with brain injuries, for dads of children with brain injuries and for families.

"There are people as far away as Canada in those support groups," Lana Machado said.

"This is his recovery family," Joey Machado said of Team Luke.

"I couldn't even imagine this without them," Lana Machado said of the support the foundation has provided. "My hope is for Team Luke Hope for Minds to become as big as Make-A-Wish."

Today, Joaquin does have some lasting effects from the brain injury, but he will be in 10th grade in the fall and able to do most things. With a reconstructed skull, he had to give up contact sports such as football. He now photographs sports from the sidelines for his high school.

He is interested in becoming an emergency medical technician, like the ones who came to his aid and kept him alive on the way to the hospital.

For Jessica Gardenhire, her daughter Ruby's traumatic brain injury came at 18 months old. Ruby went from doing all her milestones to being clumsy and walking as if she were on a boat, Gardenhire said. Doctors found a brain tumor in 2019. It took three surgeries and radiation to remove that tumor. Ruby has lasting damage.

Now 7, Ruby had to relearn how to crawl and walk, and she still uses a walker in public. Her brain's processing time is slower, and she has needed extensive therapy to rebuild her fine and gross motor skills.

The Gardenhires have fought their health insurance provider about many of the therapies they know are best for Ruby. Team Luke Hope for Minds has twice helped pay off some of those therapy bills.

"When insurance makes you go through so many hoops, Team Luke was just, 'Yeah, we'd like to help you,' " Gardenhire said. "I remember crying. They were so kind."

Ruby is now reading and recently completed first grade, and she is cancer-free.

"She's really great," Gardenhire said. "She's just the sweetest kid. I can't believe all that she's been through."

The need to grow the foundation

"Ronda and I in 2018 never expected it to be this," Tim Siegel said of the growth of the organization.

For the past three years, the foundation has been able to give more than $500,000 in assistance, Johnson said, but there is a waiting list for help.

Johnson's goal is "to never have to say no to a family who has a financial need," she said.

That's a realistic goal, Siegel said, and one he takes on as his own personal goal. "We know every year we're going to have more people contact us ... 'Hey, can you help?' We don't want to have to tell a family, 'Hold on.' "

Johnson also would like to fund every family that wants to come to the annual family conference in Austin in October. Two weeks into the application for travel scholarships being live on the website, Team Luke Hope for Minds already had handed out its 55 grants. It is trying to raise money for more.

Most of the fundraising has come from people John Hartman and Tim Siegel know. The word about Team Luke has reached people such as former Westlake High School and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, Texas Tech and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and tennis star Andy Roddick of Austin.

Johnson would like to set up staffed regional centers to better help families where they live and tap into more donations across the country through these centers.

The lessons of Luke and JD

For John Hartman, JD continues to teach him.

All of the families have hope that their child will recover and be the same as before their brain trauma, John Hartman said. He felt it, too. "We thought he was going to pop out of it, and the next thing you know he'd be back at school."

Instead, Hartman talks about the path and that everyone's path is different.

Now 27, JD lives at Marbridge, a South Austin community for adults with cognitive differences or brain injuries. He's got a snazzy new burnt orange wheelchair, which he can roll around himself. And he's talking.

"He has some funny stuff he says," John Hartman said.

Hartman said he tries to remain positive for JD.

"You can either try to find hope somewhere each day or you can feel defeated," Hartman said. "It's tough."

Tim Siegel wrote down the lessons he's learned from Luke:

• Find your passion.

• Don't ever quit.

• Lean on a friend, parent, teacher or sibling.

• Be careful — make good choices.

• Have faith.

• Find forgiveness.

• Let a loved one's legacy live on through you.

Luke did improve from where he was at age 9 when the accident happened, and Siegel truly believes Luke would have talked one day.

He died of COVID-19 at age 15 in 2021. Siegel wrote the book "Fight Like Luke" a year after his death.

Siegel said it took him years to stop being be bitter, angry or sad when he would see Luke's friends or think about what could have been. Luke would have graduated from Lubbock Cooper High School on May 23, and his school celebrated Luke with flowers and with his favorite number, 3, on the back of an empty chair in the student section.

"When I think of Luke, I'm actually uplifted instead of devastated," Siegel said. "My mission in life is to keep my son's legacy alive, and I'm doing that through Team Luke Hope for Minds.

"I've gone so many different places and heard, 'You're Luke's dad.' His impact is all over the country."

Team Luke Hope for Minds Pediatric Brain Injury Conference & Resource Fair

When:Oct. 25-26

Where:Woodlawn Baptist Church, 4600 Menchaca Road

Cost:Free for families

Registration:Visit teamlukehopeforminds.org/events .

How to help

To find more information or donate, visit teamlukehopeforminds.org .

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Team Luke Hope for Minds helps families after brain injury