Tom Archdeacon: 'The best Christmas gift I could get'

Dec. 17—TROTWOOD — There have been other Christmas gifts he especially remembers.

"One year my dad surprised my (twin) brother and me with a small motorcycle," Issiah Evans said with a laugh. "We were probably 10 or 12 and it was a real motorcycle and we fell off a couple times.

"Our mom hated it and I just remember we didn't have it too long."

As he thought back over Christmases past, he remembered getting some of "the latest LeBrons (shoes) when they came out."

As he fast-forwarded to today, his smile widened with anticipation and expectant joy: "But this will be the best Christmas gift I could get."

On Tuesday, Issiah, a senior at Trotwood-Madison High School, will be joined by his fraternal twin, Garfield, his mom, and his grandmother, for a trip to New York City. It will be his first time there and while he figures he'll enjoy all the sights and sounds and pre-Christmas festivities that make Manhattan so magical this time of year, he's focused on something else.

A day after he arrives, he's being fitted for a new, state of the art, multi-grip bionic arm — it's called a Hero Arm — thanks to generosity of the UK-based Open Bionics company that now has clinics in four U.S. cities, including New York.

The gift came about thanks to the initial efforts of his grandmother, 67-year-old Kim Nelson, a long-haul trucker who lives in Trotwood, and is, in Issiah's words, "the definition of grit and determination. What she wants, she's gonna go after."

The New York trip has been facilitated by a few donations collected on a GoFundMe page and primarily by the Phillips Temple Church on Shiloh Springs Road, where Issiah is a member.

Seventeen months ago, Issiah, one of Trotwood-Madison's top students and a stellar linebacker who already was drawing scholarship interest from Division I colleges, was severely injured in a late-night fireworks accident on the 4th of July weekend.

Visiting a friend on Myron Avenue in Trotwood, he discovered an intact, baseball-sized onion bomb fireworks laying in the grass.

Although he bypassed it a couple of times, curiosity finally overtook him, and he said he picked it up and tried unsuccessfully to light it a few times.

Thinking it was a dud, he was holding it when it suddenly went off.

He suffered injuries and burns to his eye, neck, chest, stomach, and left hand.

His right hand was blown off.

His friend's mother raced him to Dayton Children's Hospital.

In the car, as he told me when we first spoke not long after the accident, he said he "faded in and out."

"When I could focus, I was having these bad, these wrong thoughts. I was thinking, 'OK, this might be my time. I might not get through this. I might die.'"

He went into surgery and when he awoke, he said Kerry Ivy, a Trotwood assistant coach, and a mentor to him, was sitting near his bed.

Friday afternoon, Ivy remembered their initial conversation: "One of the first things we talked about was 'OK, the hard truth is your hand's not going to grow back. You have to learn to adjust and do things with your left hand.'"

The other morning, during a break between classes at Trotwood-Madison, Issiah recalled some of the indelible moments — built both on grit and determination; and bravado and naivete — from right after his surgery:

"Seeing all my friends and family and my girlfriend there, I was like 'OK, let me show you what I really can do now. Over the years I've had injuries and got through them, but now I'm going to prove to you I can get through this, too.'"

He now admits it was easier said, than done:

"In the hospital I tried to be all high-spirited, but at night, when everybody was gone and I had time to think, there definitely were some dark times.

"I'd think, 'Why did I do that? I know I messed up.' I'd get these negative thoughts."

He credited his brother, his friends and especially his girlfriend, Faith Turner, with "helping keep me positive."

"I learned to focus on other things and now, after a year and a half, I'm more able to control it. There are not as many nights — not any nights really — where I break down and feel I can't do anything."

In fact, this senior year he's doing a lot.

This past football season, the 6-foot-2, 205-pound linebacker — who calls himself "One Hand Bandit" on X (formerly Twitter) — had 88 tackles, 26 of them for a loss, 7.5 sacks, four forced fumbles and two blocked punts.

In the spring — now using his left hand — he'll continue to play tennis for the Rams. He just joined the school choir; has close to a 4.2 GPA and now is taking courses for college credit.

At home, Vickie said, Issiah helps, Kim, his single-parent mom, who is dealing with multiple sclerosis as she runs her Subway sandwich shop on Salem Avenue and tends to her family.

"He's grounded, his respectful, he's just a great kid," Ivy said.

'I'd walk on water for my grandbabies'

Vicke Nelson was delivering Sam's Club supplies when we spoke the other day. She'd just come from North Carolina and now was in Virginia. By Friday she'd be back in Ohio, stopping first in North Canton and then Delphos before returning home that night.

She's driven a semi rig for 25 years and been to 48 states and Mexico, too.

She's also been right there in Trotwood when Issiah wanted to share something with her.

While he was still in the hospital after the accident, he said he was approached about getting a prosthetic hand.

"I wasn't for that at all," he said. "I just felt it was trying too hard to be real. So, for a while, I was just stuck on not having anything."

Eventually, he was convinced to try a basic prosthesis that was covered by insurance.

"He called me and I said, 'Well Issiah, I'll be over and check it out with you,'" Vickie said. "But when I saw it, I swear it looked like it was from Captain Hook. It was the worst.

"It was bad enough he blew his hand off, but then to get that piece of junk — it was a slap in Issiah's face.

"It was one of those deals that hooked on with a strap across the chest, but it kept coming undone.

"And he said, 'Grandma, see that clamp at the end? The bolt already fell out.'

"I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, this ain't gonna work,' but I didn't let him know that. I was like, 'We'll figure it out.'

"Then I went back out to my car and had a good cry. I said to myself, 'There's got to be something better, and I was going to find it....He's my grandchild and I'd walk on water for my grandbabies.

"Finally, I Googled 'robotic hand' and I learned about Open Bionics."

The award-winning company not only has aided people across the UK and now in America, but has fitted Ukrainian soldiers who were injured in the war with Russia.

"Issiah's insurance wouldn't pay for it and I didn't know how I'd come up with the money — it was like $19,000 — but I called them and they told me they had a foundation and I could apply for help," Vickie said. "They helped me do a GoFundMe video, but I got less than $2,000.

"I could see Issiah thinking it wasn't going to happen, but I kept telling him 'I believe God's got this, so we're not going to worry.'"

Privately she did worry, but then she said she was awakened in the middle of the night by a call. It directed her to check her email.

"I had to read it three times before it sunk in," she said. "Open Bionics said it was going to pick up $18,000 of it. I just had to come up with $1,000.

"When I talked to the guy in New York, he said they'd heard about Issiah and his story. He said, 'You know, a lot of the times, when people lose a limb, they go into depression and can't get past the negatives. But all I'm seeing about this kid is that he's so positive.'

"And I said, 'That's Issiah! He's not letting anything stop him.'"

Pastor James E. Washington at Phillips Temple has seen the same thing in Issiah and vowed to help him get the bionic arm. When Open Bionics asked Issiah to be in New York on Dec. 20, the church initially wanted to fly the family there.

Vickie said she doesn't fly, so they're driving to Manhattan and the church is taking care of their hotel accommodations. Pastor Washington, who's been to New York before, will accompany them.

'Keep on steppin'

During a break before his music class, Issiah talked about his journey.

"You can probably tell...well, let me show you," he said as pulled down the neck of his shirt to show the scarred souvenirs from the fireworks explosion. Then he lifted the front of his shirt to show the injuries he'd sustained on his chest and stomach.

"I have laser surgery every month on my eye and stomach at Dayton Children's," he said. "It's so these areas don't get big and crunchy." As for his right arm, he said doctors did an additional surgery to amputate his wrist and some of his forearm to "reroute nerves so they wouldn't all be dead at the end there."

Although his original prosthesis had various attachments, he said most didn't work especially well and the apparatus was uncomfortable because of the straps. Plus, the color of the hand was different than his own skin color.

He still uses the clasp when he's in the weight room, doing bench presses.

"I feel, though, I've done a good job trying to be independent and use my left hand," he said.

For football games, Ivy said Issiah wore a "a special pad over the nub of his arm. Trainers would tape it on before every game, but it always would come loose and finally, he'd just pull it off and throw it to the sideline."

Issiah had a good season, though he admitted there was one game early on where he struggled against an especially shifty running back:

"Before, as a running back ran passed, I could grab him with two hands and just throw him down. Now I can't do that, so I've got to attack his hip and roll with him. I've got to have perfect form."

When he uncharacteristically struggled that night, Vickie, who makes sure she's off the road and in the stands each home game, noticed it, too:

"After the games, we always go out to eat. And that time I said, 'Issiah, I know what was going on. The devil had your feet!'

"He said, 'Grandma, what do you mean?'

"And I said, 'The devil sees you're gonna do great things in life. You're going to be a testimony. You'll encourage a lot of people to keep going when life gets down on them.

"'God's going to use you in a special way and the devil don't like that. So he held onto your ankles tonight. But you know what you do? You just stomp him in the head and then keep on steppin', Buddy.' "He said, 'I got you Grandma.'"

The other day, Issiah talked about that keep on steppin' mentality:

"Yes, of course, I want to be two-handed again. But I feel like I learned a whole lot over the past year and a half. I feel like I've become a lot stronger, more mature. I don't feel bad about myself.

"I pray. I read the Bible. Once I established a relationship with God, I felt I became a better person. I don't feel bad about myself. I don't sweat the small stuff now. I realized you're the one who decides how big your obstacles are."

A few weeks after his disappointing game, Issiah stepped straight through the obstacles and across the goal line for the Rams.

Ivy, the team's offensive coordinator, inserted him as a running back against Belmont and after gaining almost nine yards on his first carry, Issiah burst into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown on the next play.

Ivy said Issiah is drawing college interest, including a recent visit by the Dayton Flyers.

Although he dreams of playing college football, right now Issiah's focus is on New York.

"He's excited about this trip and the new arm," Ivy said.

It's the same for Vickie: "This was my Christmas wish and now it's really happening."

She said after a mold is made of Issiah's arm and he's fitted with his new forearm and hand, he'll have two days of instruction, learning to move the individual fingers and the other capabilities that come with the high-tech appendage.

They'll return to Trotwood late on Dec. 22.

And that means Issiah will be home in time to give out his own gifts.

He wants to thank a lot of the people who have been there for him, especially Faith, his girlfriend.

"Yeah, I'm going to be able to give full hugs again," he said with a smile. "I can't remember the last time I was able to wrap both arms all the way around someone and give them a full hug.

"This Christmas, I'll have everything I could hope for."