12/10/2025
After a life-altering car accident in 2021, Jonathan Horna thought he would never get back into competitive sports again. That's until he rolled onto the wheelchair rugby court at Shepherd Center and got the first taste of this high-contact sport.
"Oh, man, when we started running that first play, I immediately got slammed into — you know, 'teach the rookie how it is,'" Jonathan says with a laugh. "My first thought was 'wow, what just happened?' But it was exhilarating.
Jonathan, now 25, was a pre-med student and a member of Georgia State University's soccer team back in 2021. On Feb. 17 of that year, another vehicle collided into Jonathan's car. The accident resulted in a litany of injuries for the student, including an L1 spinal cord injury. After surgeries at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital — including the amputation of his left leg at the knee — Jonathan arrived at Shepherd Center in March of 2021.
While the physical challenges were complex for Jonathan, it was the mental and emotional challenges that proved the most difficult. Jonathan, accustomed to being a helper, felt uneasy when he became the one in need of help.
"Suddenly being put in this completely different situation, it was a little bit humiliating. What I had to learn was taking that humiliation and turning it into humility instead. To understand that I wasn't on my own. And to understand that there are times when you have to let others be there for you."
Jonathan says he couldn't have flipped that switch mentally without the support of his family, his home church at Holy Cross Catholic Church, in Tucker, Georgia, and especially his Shepherd Center care team.
"From the nurses to the therapists and chaplains, they all helped a lot with the mental side of things," Jonathan says. "They got me going, got me active, helped change my mindset."
He also relied on the peer support of his fellow patients to help along his progress, remembering being around younger people who were going through similar things. Now, after all the hard work of rehabbing with help from his community, he is playing on the Shepherd Smash, Shepherd Center's quad rugby team, which is one of 10 adaptive sports in Shepherd’s Alias Family Sports Teams Program.
To learn more about Jonathan's story, click the link below.
