It was 2007, Cameron Smyly, along with his brother and sister, were being driven to school by his mother in the Mississippi Delta region. There was great anticipation because it would be ‘Spirit Day’ at school. At a stop sign, they bowed their heads to say a prayer for the day. “And luckily for me, I had my seat belt on that morning. I’d been kind of fighting and being a brat that morning and wasn’t going to wear a seat belt, but my mom talked me into it.” Just then, a truck rammed the car, impacting the side of the vehicle where young Cameron was sitting, praying.
That moment changed his life trajectory forever. [hear the full interview in our podcast]
Cameron, just a first-grader, had suffered an internal decapitation. His skull was literally separated from his spine, an injury that is often unsurivable or leads to permanent disability.
Cameron believes It was not coincidence that a Mississippi surgeon had just returned from Europe where he had studied new techniques for the exact catastrophic injury he had experienced. “There’s no other way” – this was something God coordinated in advance, Cameron feels.
The surgery was a success. For the most part, Cameron was close to normal again. But, when he reached high school age, he realized he really shouldn’t take part in rough competitive sports, but he did manage to keep physically fit and have fun. When he moved on to Mississippi College, a Christian University in the Jackson area, “I slowly started to realize that what I have right now with me I can use to inspire other people and the fact this injury occurred to me is not a bad thing, it’s a good thing that God placed in my life for a reason.”
These days, when Cameron is working out at the gym, people often notice the very distinct scar from the surgery, which gives him the opportunity to share his story of survival and victory. “They're just blown away,” when he shares what happened and where he is now. “They can’t believe that I’m sitting here talking to them, much less working out, moving the way I do.”
Cameron is very thankful for his professors as he studies kinesiology, the science of human movement. He says, “They’re all top-notch. They’re like family. I wouldn’t trade any of them for the world!”
And his professors are big fans of Cameron. “I believe that Cameron is a living testament to the purpose that the Lord gives each of us for our brief stay here on the Earth,” Dr. Zackary Vosen says. “Cameron is such an inspiration because he beat the odds. The world and modern medicine would marvel at his ‘lucky’ recovery, but as Christians, we know how and why God healed Cameron. We all have gifts and a purpose for being here, but Cameron fully embraces his purpose and lives it out daily. He will be an incredible ambassador for Mississippi College, but more importantly, an example of a Godly man heading out into the world to make a difference.”
And once he graduates, Cameron plans to open a training facility to encourage and inspire others.
In our complete interview podcast below, Cameron shares that in his first semester, freshman year, at college “I prayed to God for the first time since junior high” and the very next day his biology professor asked to eat with him at the cafeteria. And over that lunch, the conversation aimed Cameron in a different direction for his major, which helped him ‘fall in love’ with kinesiology.’ Hear about that crucial conversation in our podcast.
