Life After Nearly Dying

Will Jester, of Lizella, with a great buck from Worth County that he killed on Dec. 6.

By Will Jester

My life has never been easy.

The very first year of my life, when I was 9 months old, my biological father passed away. Soon my mother remarried a wonderful man. When I was 15, my life took a drastic turn again as my adopted father, and who I will always call my dad, passed away, as well.

It was around the time of my dad’s passing when I really began to get into hunting. You see, my dad never took me hunting, but he did introduce me to the great outdoors. He sure loved to fish, and I do, too. So for me being outdoors has always been in my blood. My dad and my friends were always outside. There were no video games for us. Whether it was outside playing every sport you could think of, camping or fishing, being outside has always had a special place in my heart. I was living every young boy’s dream.

My dad passed away while I was playing football on Oct. 4, 2007. Probably the longest ride I ever took in my life was the one from the football field to the hospital that day. After he was laid to rest, I was completely shocked, and the only place I could find solace and peace was in the woods. I guess I just loved the feeling of being disconnected from the world, and to this day that feeling has never left me.

At that time, I had really just discovered a passion for hunting. My brother Shayne Abney introduced me to hunting at a dove shoot, and my cousin Joseph and I started deer hunting pretty hard around the time of my father’s passing. We learned everything on our own, completely self taught on one tract of land. No cell phone, no cameras, just two kids who had a passion for killing whitetails.

Will with his first deer after the accident. He took the Monroe County doe in November 2023 and is pictured with his daughter, Abney, who was 5 years old at the time.

On Oct. 26, 2007, I was hunting with my good buddy, Hunter Wilkinson, and his father, Donnie Wilkinson (my first hunt after my father’s passing), and I killed a tank of an 8-point. I remember at the deer processor that people were telling me it was too bad I killed such a perfect buck my first time. Hunters waited years for a deer like that. What happened next? I killed a 10-point with my cousin, and from that moment, it was on! I was hooked.

My wife Ellie has been my biggest supporter and fan since day one.  We have been together since we were 16 years old. We got married April 14, 2018. That same year we had our first child, and my second child was born March 22, 2021. Life was amazing. We both had great jobs, making great money and raising a great family. The best family times were the ones we spent in the woods, in the creek or anywhere we were together. My kids were infatuated with my mounts, and it’s like they knew we would always be a family of hunters. Ellie and I had racked up quite the show room. I have never been a size advocate, but I love to show off my mounts.

Aug. 19, 2023 started out like any other day. It was a hot Saturday, and I was meeting my cousins at the hunting property to move a couple of stands, bush-hog, rearrange some cameras… you know, your typical early season prep work.

After looking at a spot for about 30 minutes, my cousin and I decided that there wasn’t a tree for the spot. After deciding on another spot a couple hundred yards down a powerline, I decided not to make the trip back across the property to grab my harness and linemen belt. The decision would almost cost me everything… almost.

I have a pretty dark saying about that day. If I would have died, it would have been the easiest way to die because I don’t remember anything up until about a week after my fall. I had a burst fracture of my T8 vertebrae in the thoracic region, pinching my spinal cord and ultimately paralyzing me from the chest down. I was airlifted from the hunting spot to the nearest trauma unit in Macon. I had surgery to stabilize my back a few days later, and I began the life of a paraplegic.

Will with another buck. He is pictured with Rob Rozar at Red Oaks Plantation in Worth County.

After 12 days at the Macon hospital, I was transferred to the world-renowned Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Not knowing the outcome or the severity of my injury was a very scary thing for me. It was almost instantly that I knew I would never have the pleasure to walk again. At the time I had broken bones, blood clots and fluid in my lungs, so thinking about my paralysis was the furthest thing from my mind. The one time I was able to leave the trauma ICU in Macon my heart rate jumped so high the crash team was called in. The one thing I could feel was when they gave me the medicine to stop my heart and then have it restart again—that was crazy. This would become an ongoing issue that would later have to be addressed at Shepherd as it prevented me from doing therapy on a regular basis.

My wife and kids are my life, and being in the position I was in made me feel like a failure as a husband and a father.

Shepherd is an incredible facility. The physical therapists became my best friends, the occupational therapist taught me how to live on a daily basis and the mental therapist was amazing. Seeing other people going through exactly what I was going through helped me feel almost normal and taught me a lot.

It’s crazy, but the hardest part for me was not being able to hunt and thinking how I would or how I could. For the first time since my dad passed, I was not in the woods on opening day, and it was wearing on me. Seeing the seasons change from a hospital room window was devastating and depressing.

In my opinion, there are two ways you can react to being in a position like mine, life or death. I came home Oct. 27, and on Oct. 29, I was in a deer blind. Heck, I was in the woods every time I had an opportunity. It was still the place I found my peace, my solace, my church.

I’m super fortunate to have a great family and a great group of friends (our village) who will do anything for me at the drop of a hat. That being said, I want anyone in my position to know that there is life after accidents like mine. You can drive, you can play sports, you can enjoy the outdoors. There are all kinds of grants, fundraisers, programs and scholarships for people like us. You may not be able to do it the same way or as good as you once did, but there is so much adaptive equipment to help you do whatever your heart desires.

I am currently in the process of working on a non-profit called Halo29 to bring awareness to all of this and to give back. I firmly believe this is my calling. I am learning as I go, and I am learning some amazing tips and tricks I would love to share.

I wrote this article to share my story and hopefully reach out to a person who maybe thinks they can’t do it anymore when I promise you, you can!

Good luck to all my fellow hunters, and never forget to wear your safety harness.