Healing Touch: Trauma survivors and their Memorial Hermann saviors celebrate each other

THE WOODLANDS, TX – Memorial Herman The Woodlands Medical Center conducted its annual event celebrating formerly critically injured patients who have survived and thrived, and the staff who made the medical miracles happen.

The event, the 2025 Trauma Survivors Celebration, is part of the hospital’s Trauma Survivorship Program, which offers free resources that allow survivors to share their stories and challenges with others who have had similar experiences, while learning powerful skills for coping and navigating their new lives post-injury. The program currently offers a monthly, virtual support group for survivors, the ability to connect with a peer survivor / mentor, a monthly newsletter, and referrals to a variety of resources both locally and nationally.

The celebration recognized nearly two dozen current and former patients who came to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and who were subsequently treated and released to continue their lives. The patients, the families, the staff of doctors, nurses, technicians, and administrators, and the media were invited to participate in the celebration.

The program kicked off with a welcome by Melanie Bradshaw, the hospital’s trauma survivorship coordinator, followed by acknowledgements from Jim Carman, president, Houston region of Howard Hughes. Denise Martin, the trauma program and emergency department director, blessed the proceedings, and was followed at the podium b y Dr. Timothy Hodges, the trauma medical director for Memorial Hermann.

Hodges introduced three examples of the modern medical miracle – three former trauma patients that were treated back to health – who each told their story. Afterwards, there was a recognition of all the trauma survivors in attendance, as well as the emergency medical crews who were most often the first step in their eventual survival from their injuries. The celebration concluded with a meet-and-greet between the trauma survivors and the health care professionals who healed them.

One of the former patients that Hoedges had overseen was Andres Brienco, victim of a car accident in 2023.

“I was driving home on Woodlands Parkway and got into a fight with a tree. The next thing I remembered was waking up in Memorial Hermann after a long nap, a two-week induced coma. I’m happy they brought me here; this hospital is the best,” he told Woodlands Online. “Thank you to Memorial Hermann for recognizing us; not just the survivors but also the medical staff, where we get to reunite with the nurses and doctors who took care of us. These people saw us when we were at our lowest, at our worst, and it’s nice to see them excited to see us as we do better. We also have the opportunity to share our stories, to offer our unique journeys, and how we think of the next step that is helping others.”

Another trauma survivor was Ella Walker, a Tomball High School senior, who ironically was preparing to take her EMS exam when her own accident occurred.

“I was at my little cousin’s birthday party, just having fun and playing with them on the trampoline, and I decided to do a roundoff back-handspring backflip, and in my backflip, I didn’t fully twist all the way through, and I ended up landing on my head. I’d jumped about eight or nine feet in the air, so when I landed the force on my head and my body on top of me compressed my spine and gave me a bursting fracture in my T-12 and a compression fracture on my L-1. The ambulance came and brought me here. The fractures meant that any move could possibly paralyze me, so they figured the best option was to do surgery, which happened about a month ago,” she told Woodlands Online. “Everyone who has been here has impacted my life. I have not met one single person in this hospital that hasn’t been the best person in the world.”

Woodlands Online also talked with the doctor who was integral in the healing of both of these people, Timothy Hodges, who is in his tenth year as trauma medical director. He was integral in getting Memorial Hermann The Woodlands upgraded from a Level 3 to a Level 2 trauma center facility.

“My part in all this is not as big as everybody gives me credit for. It’s a huge team and a huge group of folks who make this happen from other physicians to nurse practitioners to nurses to the case managers and social workers. There’s such a monumental amount of effort put into all of these patients. The only thing I do is guide the ship the best I can and try to make sure that people are given their proper credit.”