Georgia teacher Tre Lawson defies doctor’s prognosis after 2017 paralyzing spinal cord injury

MACON, Ga. — Macon educator and author Ronnie “Tre” Lawson said he wants people to know that “broken does not mean finished” after a car accident as a teenager left him with a spinal cord injury.

Lawson, 26, was 17 when a friend fell asleep at the wheel as they drove home from a summer track meet, sending the car off the road and into a 30-foot ravine, he said. He said he suffered a brain injury, an incomplete T12-L1 spinal cord injury and abdominal injuries when the seat belt “basically broke me in half” and his backbone shifted onto his spinal cord, cutting off feeling from the waist down.

In the months that followed, Lawson said he felt like his life was over. 

“I didn’t honestly want to live at that period of time,” he said. “I was truthfully thinking of different ways to take myself out of the world, but gratefully, God’s faith kept me here as well as the prayers of my friends and family.”

Therapy at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta helped Lawson relearn daily tasks and adapt to life with a disability, he said. 

Today, Lawson said his recovery is still in progress but has gone further than doctors first predicted. 

“Today I can walk with a walker. I can walk with forearm crutches. I can walk. I can stand with a cane,” he said. “I can’t take much steps, but at least I have the opportunity and the ability to stand with a cane.”

Since the accident, Lawson has graduated with honors from Fort Valley State University with degrees in early childhood and special education and started a master’s program at Louisiana State University. 

He began teaching in February 2021 and now works in special education at Southfield Elementary School in Macon, teaching kindergarten and first grade students.

“I enjoy every day I get to go to the classroom and see the smiling faces as well as getting the hugs and the different relationships that you build with the students,” Lawson said. 

He said the classroom has become one of his greatest joys. 

“I love my job. I would never trade it for anything in the world,” Lawson said.

In January, Lawson released a book titled “The Hurdle That Broke Me,” which he described as a look at his life before and after the crash. 

He said he hopes readers see themselves in his story of loss, mental health struggles and resilience. Lawson said he wants people to understand that even though his body was “broken in half physically,” his mind and emotions were not. 

“If I’m breathing, then it’s not over,” Lawson said. “If you’re still breathing, you still have an opportunity to grow.”

Lawson’s long-term goal in education is to open his own school in Macon, which he hopes to call Roll of Hope Academy, to bring new opportunities to students in his hometown.