May 1, 2015 was NFL draft night and Brandon O’Neill had people over to hang out and play cards.
When he woke up in the morning, he was on the floor and couldn’t move. He called to his roommate, who thought he was joking. But Brandon was paralyzed.
He was rushed to St. Joe’s hospital in Pontiac for surgery. Brandon had a severe C6-C7 spinal neck injury that left him paralyzed from the nipple line down, with limited mobility in his arms and hands.
How it happened remains a mystery. According to the surgeon, it could not have simply been a fall backward or forward onto his face or a piece of furniture. The medical evidence suggested it may have been an assault, with someone snap-twisting his neck from behind.
Police investigated, but they found no evidence besides the injury itself. Brandon has no memory of the event. No witnesses have come forward.
Not even his roommate. “He doesn’t want to talk about it and he hasn’t reached out,” Brandon said. They had been good friends in high school and lived together for three years. He came to see Brandon once at the hospital and once when he got home, but stopped coming around after that. “It’s funny how many people have gravitated toward helping me that weren’t around. That’s obviously a little more telling.”
Brandon has his suspicions, but he’s not accusing anyone. He just doesn’t know what happened. He completely blacked out, which is normal for a traumatic spinal injury. “I don’t have any closure on that issue.”
The next 18 months were critical for Brandon’s recovery. After two weeks at St. Joe’s in Pontiac, they moved him to the Spinal Rehab Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he stayed until October.
“I was just living in the moment and trying to get better and stronger each day,” Brandon recalled. He tried not to think about where he would be in 10 or 20 years.
“You go back to day one in your life as far as dependencies,” Brandon explained. He slowly built up his strength, learning how to sit up, how to transfer in and out of his chair, how to use his arms, how to roll over. He had to re-learn how to do basic tasks like going to the bathroom, brushing his hair and shaving. “Really you’re just trying to learn these little cheats in life to work with what you have.”
After Ann Arbor, Brandon moved into his parents’ living room in Oxford.
He went to physical therapy at a neuro clinic in Grand Blanc five days a week for four hours a day.
Brandon found that there were limitations to physical therapy, however. If he wanted to try extra work on his legs or core, insurance would not cover it because they saw his diagnosis and interpreted that he will never walk again, so they don’t bother trying.
He took six weeks off to try something different. He went to Barwis, an athletic training facility in Plymouth renowned for hosting the Detroit Red Wings and professional athletes from across the country. Barwis also helps people with injuries regain motor function through a technique called Neurological Reengineering.
Brandon is not sure how much difference it made. “It’s nothing real noticeable,” he said, “but shoot, in that first 18 months, I was so weak in a lot of areas. It’s tough to pinpoint and say, ‘where would I be without it?’ I don’t know. But I feel like going there and doing that really set me up.”
He wishes he could have continued, but it cost $1,000 a week out of pocket.
With spinal injuries there is no crystal ball. Every case is different. Because of this, Brandon has found it hard to gauge his progress without comparing himself to others. But compared to where he was, he certainly has made a lot of progress. Before, he couldn’t even sit up. Now he can transfer out of his chair and propel himself.
But his progress may have plateaued. After two years, he was required to switch his health insurance to Medicare. This meant he could not go to therapy as often. Now he only goes twice a week for a couple hours because that’s how much Medicare coverage provides. He would go more often if he could afford it.
When the accident happened, Brandon’s mother, Linda Campbell, was still working. She was able to retire in February 2016, four months after Brandon came home, to become his caregiver. When he first came home, he needed care every three or four hours.
Linda’s husband, Brandon’s stepdad, has dementia and has sharply declined since Brandon has come home. “She’s giving up her first five years of retirement to basically take care of two people,” Brandon recognizes.
In addition to caring for both of them, she does all the housework herself. “Mom does all the landscaping, mows the lawn. She does all the ‘manly’ activities. She cleans the house, cooks and snowblows the driveway,” Brandon said.
“I’ve always said that yardwork is therapy,” Linda said. “It takes me to a different place.”
On top of everything else, in the summer of 2018 she had a plumbing job go bad and flooded all three levels of the house, which required extensive renovations. To deal with the stress, she went outside to plant some flowers. Then she won a home Beautification Award from the Oxford Village Beautification Commission. Linda laughs about it now. “You haven’t been inside!” she remembers thinking.
Accumulating financial costs have added to the stress.
Initially, Brandon needed a power chair. He got a good deal when the University of Michigan offered him the demo chair he was using while he was there. It still cost $18,000. Insurance didn’t cover it.
Then Brandon needed a way to get to Grand Blanc for therapy, since it is out of NOTA’s range. They found a service that costed $125 a day. So they paid that five times a week. It was so expensive, they realized they needed to get a van, or they would eventually end up paying for one in transportation fees. They found a minivan for $20,000, but then modifications costed an additional $35,000.
Eventually, Brandon made enough progress to switch to a manual chair with a power drive. But that costed an additional $12,000.
He also just passed a driver’s training course, which costed $1,500. But in order to drive the van, he’s looking at another $6,000 in modifications for hand controls and a seat lift to get him into the driver’s seat.
Before the accident, Brandon had little in savings. Linda has borrowed heavily from her 401K.
Brandon bemoans the fact that had his injury was not an auto accident or covered by worker’s compensation. “If I was injured in an auto accident, I could have got a new van, an addition to the house, as much therapy, I mean unlimited, everything, I would not be in this position.”
Four and a half years after the accident, Brandon is getting cabin fever. He feels confined and has little privacy. A few curtains partition off his living space in his parents’ living room, but that is it. He still sleeps in a narrow hospital bed.
Despite his progress, he remains dependent on others. “I haven’t taken a shower in two years.” Brandon is given sponge baths three times a week.
At 38 years old, living at home with his parents, he cannot even set his own schedule. “The first couple years, sure I’m going to therapy, I’m okay with everything. Well, once that wears off, I’m ready for the next step. The next step means starting to live on my own.”
The mental aspect is what Brandon finds most difficult. He feels very blessed, but he misses a basic sense of normalcy and purpose.
That was Brandon’s situation when he met Josh McFarland at a Super Bowl party last year. McFarland, who owns Lumber Mac lumber yard in Oxford, was moved by Brandon’s story and wanted to help.
That’s why he is sponsoring a GoFundMe fundraiser. He is looking for folks to donate money, supplies or time toward building an addition for the house. It will include an accessible ramp from the interior of the home, an access point to its own entrance from the garage, a master suite bedroom, a new adjustable bed and a handicap accessible bathroom.
“Providing my own living space would be a life-altering situation because where I’m at in my recovery, I need to start doing independent things.”
The GoFundMe has raised $11,120 from 78 donors since Dec. 29. McFarland says that will cover the initial materials including the foundation, concrete and footing. The goal is $60,000.

McFarland is coordinating a team of volunteers behind the scenes, finding tradesmen that are either willing to donate their time or at least work for nominal pay. His own company will donate the lumber. He is working with a structural engineer to draw up the plans and hopes to begin the work in the next few months.
“He’s doing an amazing job,” Linda said. “We just met him basically. I want to hug him every time I see him.”
“I’m not a super religious person,” Brandon said, “but this is some kind of divine intervention. It’s just blowing me away. This isn’t a normal thing. People just don’t do this for other people, especially someone they just met.”
McFarland’s kindness has doubled Brandon’s motivation to regain independence so he can pay it forward when someone else needs a favor. “I’m so much looking forward to giving back for everything that I’m getting. That’s what gets me excited. That’s what gets me moving to start working and be able to provide for somebody else.”
McFarland affirmed that it was indeed divine intervention. “I just heard the whisper: ‘Help. Help this man, help my son,” he recalled.
He didn’t know how to do it on his own. There’s no way he could afford it financially. But then the idea came to him: “You’re going to create a GoFundMe and you’re going to get the whole community together and it’s going to be bigger than I could possibly imagine.”
And many people have reached out. “It’s not the kindness of my heart. It is God that put it in me to do it. And I know it’s going to be amazing.”
McFarland has never built an addition before. He was afraid he couldn’t do it. “Because I heard that whisper though, not a fear in the world can stop me,” McFarland told Brandon. “I would go through a burning building for you. I will be up there on the trusses myself.
“It’s an honor to be able to take this on. I have my health and my well-being. It could have been any one of us in this accident.”
Folks can support the cause at gofundme.com/f/help-us-make-a-difference-in-brandons-life.