ORANGE PARK, Fla. – A Jacksonville teen is recovering in the intensive care unit at Orange Park Medical Center after suffering serious injuries last week in an ATV crash.
Jonathan Jones, 17, was driving an ATV along Brady Road near Alberts Field Park last Tuesday when he veered off the road and slammed into a tree. A bystander used Jones’ phone to call his mother, and the teen was flown to the hospital for treatment.
“He kept saying, you know, ‘It hurts! It hurts!’” his mother, Joyce, recalled. “And it was more sound than words. I noticed one of the paramedics was holding his leg. It just looked really, really bad and all that and just screams of pain and all that.”
The crash left Jones with a broken leg, broken arm, broken toes and a concussion. His injuries required him to undergo five hours of surgery, including two blood transfusions with the potential for a third.
Despite the toll taken by the crash, Joyce Jones said her son is lucky to be alive.
“His helmet is what saved him, so thankfully he wore that because it’s what saved him from additional injury,” Jones told News4Jax. “Because at the scene, we thought it was major head trauma.”
Even though the 17-year-old is now awake and alert, his mother said he has memory loss and does not remember the details of the crash or the sequence of events that led up to it. His family is still trying to piece together how it all unfolded.
It likely will take about six months for him to recover. “It’s going to be not impossible, but it’s going to be hard,” Joyce Jones said of her son’s journey.
Friends said the teen, who goes by JJ, is well regarded at Mandarin High School, where his mother is the Dean of Students. Jones is part of the football team, as well as a member of Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Chick-fil-A Leader Academy.
Jones’ insurance company is not covering the teen’s hospital stay because of how his injuries happened, his mother said. To help offset the expenses, the family has set up a GoFundMe account to raise money.