In 2008 Heather McMillan was in a major vehicle accident. The Jeep she was riding in hit a culvert, flipped and threw the passengers out. It was 17 degrees that January morning and Heather faced the fight of her life.
She overcame her injuries and earned her registered nursing degree from Mississippi University for Women in 2015. She met, and after being pursued by him for two years, married Patrick Hughes.
Pat grew up in Kosciusko, went to Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia and graduated from Mississippi State with a degree in ag economics.
At 33, he is a two-time winner of the Comedy Show Championship at the International Finals Rodeo. His sense of humor and his willingness to clown combine to make him perfect for the role. From his steer wrestling and rodeo days at Northwest, he’s extended his rodeo “family” across the United States.
Pat works for Sansing Farms, managing the feed service and hog breeding, and taking care of the sod farm operations. With Heather working for North Mississippi Home Health, the two were happily raising their 2-year-old son, Wyatt, at their residence on County Line Road.
Heather had come in from her night shift and was sleeping Aug. 15 when the knock on the door came. There had been an accident at work and Pat was seriously injured. She immediately donned the scrubs she had taken off and headed to Sansing’s.
She found a horrifying sight but her nurse training kicked in and she began assessing injuries. Pat had been airing a tractor tire when he heard the whine of the valve and knew the pressure was high and stopped the air, just as the tire blew. The force flipped him backwards twice. When Heather arrived, she saw her beloved husband curled in a fetal position and his brain matter exposed. His face had already started swelling.
Ambulances from two hospitals arrived soon after and within 15 minutes a helicopter had landed and Pat was being loaded into it. The attendants turned to Heather and asked which of the two hospitals she was with; her reply that she was the patient’s wife stunned them.
As Patrick was headed via helicopter to University Medical Center in Jackson, Heather ran home and threw clothes and necessities in her suitcase, including a complete outfit for Pat. She left home with the clear intention of bringing him back with her. Her experience with the Jeep accident earlier let her know she was facing a major challenge but she was undaunted.
Doctors greeted her in Jackson with the news that immediate brain surgery was required to reduce a hematoma on the right side of the brain. They told her there was a good chance he would not make it through the surgery but without it he had almost no chance to survive. That was the first of many decisions the nurse/wife/mom began making that would bring them through the ordeal.
Pat’s right orbital floor was fractured; the right back side of the orbit is gone. His injuries included muscle and nerve damage and a hematoma on the right side of the brain, a posterior orbit shattered, and his nasal cavity was shattered. He had a left frontal skull fracture, and that’s where the brain matter had been exposed.
He was in a coma for an indefinite period of time; he doesn’t remember anything of his Aug. 15-Sept. 19 stay at UMC. His memory picks up when he was in Methodist Rehab Center in Jackson.
But Heather remembers well. Pinelake Church, where she and Patrick attend, covered her in prayer. Almost daily there was someone from the Starkville or Jackson campus there to check on them, bring them coffee, pray over him and offer support.
As she prayed for God’s help, she felt his presence and peace come over her in the early morning hours of Aug. 16.
“It was like a blanket of peace covering my body,” Heather said. “I felt God saying he would heal us.”
She knew then that they were headed for complete healing. She wrote daily letters to Pat and posted her prayer requests and victories on Facebook.
“When you put something on internet, it’s out there and anywhere,” Pat commented.
And they have received words of support and stories of people being brought to Christ through their story from as far away as Israel, Kenya and Japan. His rodeo “family” has rallied around him, too.
“Only through Christ could we have done this”, Heather said. Every day God met me and gave me the strength for the day.”
And 56 days after they arrived in Jackson, she was able to bring Pat home.
He still has physical therapy, speech and occupational therapy, teaching him easier ways to do everyday things. Heather and Pat’s relationship and bond of love is strong; the injuries have caused Pat to become more sensitive to noises and reduced his patience but the therapy is teaching him how to cope with those things.
“I fell in love with her the day I met her,” Patrick says of Heather, whom he lovingly calls Otis.
The feeling wasn’t immediately returned, as he is a few years younger than Heather and she wasn’t ready for it. But when she knew him better and saw what a hard worker he was, she began to admire him. And from that grew the love that has taken them through this trial.
Patrick is anxious to be released to go back to work, but each day he says that God meets him and gets him through the day. He’s down to over-the-counter medications for the pain and each day shows improvement.
His face still shows the imprint of the rim of the tire but his movements are normal, his speech is coherent and his love for his beautiful wife and nurse shines. They take each day as it comes, resting in the assurance that God will take them to complete healing.
