‘I couldn’t have done it without them’: Horry County man makes victory lap six months after severe motorcycle crash

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) - It’s been a long ride for 22- year-old Cody Lovejoy.

Back in July, he recalls just a normal night leaving work, and that’s when it happened.

A serious crash from a drunk driver turning left on Graystone Blvd off Highway 17, hit Lovejoy on the left of his motorcycle.

“I was just going through an intersection and just like that I was in the ditch on the side of the road,” said Lovejoy. “I just remember talking to the paramedics and then we took that ride here and I woke up here I don’t remember anything between there.”

Lovejoy spent 13 days as a trauma patient, where he underwent 10 surgeries and a skin graph.

Unfortunately, he suffered a broken leg that had to be amputated below the knee, then spent time at Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, Georgia.

Now six months later, for the team at Grand Strand Medical Center, seeing Cody make a victory lap after healing is the reason they do what they do.

“And I really take that to heart as a great responsibility and a great privilege and I think it’s just wonderful to be able to see people walk, talk, move, and do things that we were really worried may not be possible on that day,” said Dr. Rachel Cobos, a Trauma Surgeon and Surgical Director of the Intensive Care Unit of Grand Strand Medical Center. “And I think that’s a really wonderful gift that this is for the family come here and show us where they are.”

Lovejoy shared how it wouldn’t have been possible without their team.

“I couldn’t have done it without them I mean really if they weren’t here up probably would have gave up you know just hated it all been miserable but everybody made strike kept a smile on my face.”

Through the smiles and support of family, he said it is just another obstacle that got in the way.

“It was tough at first, but everyone kept reassuring me that I’d be able to do everything I did before and they were right,” said Lovejoy. “Everything that I’ve been able to do before, it’s a little more complicate, but I can still do it.”

Lovejoy also shared how his journey has made him realize how valuable time is, and for that, he hoped to travel across the world soon.

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