By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher What kind of thought process goes on inside the mind of a 16-year-old when making the decision to jump in front of a moving vehicle, knowing the bone-shattering impact that is sure to come? In Jackie Adams’ mind, dying was the release she was in search of when she ran in front of a car that night in Ocean City. Anything to end the pain. On Oct. 4, 2008, Marie Adams thought her daughter was lying in bed watching the Phillies take on the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 3 of the National League Division Series. Last time she checked that’s where Jackie was, so when the call came in from the Ocean City Police Department it took Marie by surprise. Unbeknownst to Marie, Jackie had slipped out of the house to go for a run. A while later, Marie found out that Jackie had flung herself in front of an oncoming car in a suicide attempt. Less than three months later, Jackie tried again by jumping out of a second-story window to the concrete below. When she was hit by the car, Jackie sustained a severe head injury, a bruised lung, and a mangled knee that required four weeks in a brace. Her leap from the second-story window resulted in severe bruising of both feet that had her in a wheelchair for nearly three weeks, facial lacerations, and, ironically, another concussion. It’s ironic because concussions are what brought Jackie Adams to the brink of death as a teenager. And, equally ironic is the fact that without having a series of concussions that nearly ended her life, she wouldn’t have found out who she really is now at the age of 22. Costly collision Late in her sophomore season for the Ocean City High School girls soccer team, Jackie, a striker, went up for a header and collided with the Lower Cape May Regional goalkeeper. She suffered a bad concussion, and her life has never been the same since. “My ears were ringing. I kind of really wasn’t thinking anything. I came out of the game, didn’t practice the next day or so. I kept having headaches, but I lied to everybody because I was a sophomore playing on varsity and I didn’t want to lose my spot,” Jackie said. “(The trainers) recognized it, but the whole concussion thing wasn’t that big yet in the fall of 2007. I think if I had told them I was hurting it might have been different, but I felt like I was going to lose my spot if I spoke up. So I just told them I was alright. I still had headaches and was dizzy, but I didn’t want to stop playing, and I paid the price for that.” Jackie’s fierce competitiveness probably cost her what could have been a very good high school career, and she knows that now. “I was playing my best at the end of the season, and trying to help my team get to the state playoffs, which was my ultimate goal. I almost became obsessive with that. I was really struggling with school after the season. I was acting up, staying up all night doing homework and not even completing it. I was having bad headaches,” Jackie said. “School was just so hard. I felt like no one really understood me. I couldn’t even focus at all, couldn’t concentrate, I wasn’t sleeping at night. My head was hurting so badly. It was just hurting all the time. 
Former Ocean City soccer player Jackie Adams has been suffering through post-concussion syndrome for the last several years, but has new hope in 2015, as she will be starting an intense 12-week therapy program at Jefferson hospital in Philadelphia this month. (Photos by Ben Hale/Benjamin Hale Photography) “I was just so down on myself. Here I was playing varsity soccer and then I couldn’t even function through a day at school.” Jackie said at times the pain she was feeling in her head was simply unbearable. “I used to have headaches so bad that I would want to break a bone in my hand or something just so I could feel pain somewhere else, and maybe that would take pain away from my head,” she said. Comeback stalls Jackie said she had a few concussions prior to the one near the end of her sophomore year, but that was the one that ultimately ended her high school soccer career. She tried valiantly to make a comeback during her senior year after sitting out her entire junior year, but suffered another head injury in the preseason, and she knew it was all over. Prior to her senior season, she tried to gut her way through the preseason practices, often times suffering through dizzy spells and vomiting after practice. Such was her desire to get back onto the field that she was willing to push herself to the limit just to make it back. But in a scrimmage at Eastern Regional, she went up for a header, got knocked in the temple, and that was it. No storybook ending. No piece on ESPN narrated by Tom Rinaldi. It was just over. “I knew that was it. I knew it was over, and I think (Coach Bill Pesda) did, too. That was probably the longest bus ride home,” Jackie said. “I just stared out the window. I think the girls on the team knew, too. I wasn’t sobbing, but I had tears coming down. They didn’t try to talk to me, but just sat next to me to let me know they were there for me. I think everybody knew that was it. And it was, unfortunately.” Depression sets in Junior year was hard on Jackie, having to sit out the soccer season. She admits she had become somewhat obsessive about trying to lead the Red Raiders’ girls soccer team to a state championship, and she began to realize those dreams likely weren’t going to come true. Her whole life up to that point had been about soccer, and to see her dreams shattered, combined with the constant headaches and the inability to keep up with her schoolwork, simply became too much for the 16-year-old to handle. Junior year is the apex of many high school athletic careers. That’s when star athletes really begin to blossom on the varsity level. College coaches come around offering scholarships. For many high school athletes, junior year is the real transition from kid to adult, all your hopes and dreams seemingly about to be delivered to your doorstep. But the only things sitting on Jackie Adams’ welcome mat were pain, frustration, anger and hopelessness. “Junior year I wasn’t able to play at all, and that really killed me. The only thing I wanted was a state championship and I felt powerless, worthless. Pes still let me be on the team and they tried to include me as best they could, but I just had to sit there on the sideline and I felt helpless. It felt like I was watching everyone else live their lives and I was just sitting there watching from the outside. Junior year probably was the hardest year of my life so far,” Jackie said. “I was still having trouble with schoolwork, I was really angry. Soccer is my passion, my life, my love. And junior year is when you start looking at colleges, and and I had no idea what the future would hold for me. The depression got really high junior year. It was just so tough.” Childhood friend, teammate and classmate Morgan Torres said she could see the change in Jackie, and understood why she became so depressed. “I think in high school she was surrounded by a lot of pressure to do well in school and in sports, and she didn’t want to give up on anything, so when she kept getting concussions she just insisted on continuing everything, and if anything it made it worse for her. Eventually it was one too many concussions,” Torres said. “Our junior year was when everybody started to play more competitively, looking at colleges and things like that, and she had a hard time taking the bench and trying to enjoy it from the sidelines instead of being able to get in there and show that she was good enough, too. She definitely was, but everything that happened with her h
ead really held her back, and I think that’s where she had issues.” That’s when Jackie decided she was better off dead. Not only to ease her pain, but to eliminate the burden she perceived was brought upon her parents and family. All the trips to various doctors, the times when she had to be home schooled because she kept having seizures. In her mind, her parents would be much better off without having to deal with all that. So she decided to jump in front of a car. “I was thinking I didn’t want to be in pain anymore, and my parents were in so much pain, I just felt like if I got rid of myself it would take so much off of them. I just wanted it all to end. I didn’t see any future for me, I didn’t have any hope,” Jackie said. “I thought maybe if I died, I would rally the team and they would win the state championship, all that Hollywood stuff you think about. I just went out and started running, and I don’t know that I really wanted to (jump in front of the car), but at that moment I just did it. I feel so bad for that driver. That’s the one thing I have not forgiven myself for. That lady, I feel so bad. “That was just such a bad time, and I think it all stems back to those concussions. It puts your life on hold and you can’t function. It’s the hardest thing ever. People think you are crazy, and that’s hard for a 16-year-old to take it all in.” Jackie’s parents, Marie and Scott, said the fall and winter of 2008, when Jackie tried to kill herself not once, but twice, was the most difficult time their family has ever had to deal with. “It really tests your faith. You realize in life you don’t have control over everything. We just kept saying, when you decide to have a kid, nothing hurts worse than when there is something wrong with your kid. I wasn’t resentful or mad, but at the same time you are thinking, my kid is messed up for a game. What kind of parents would let their kids be exposed to that?” Scott said. “We had to sit back and say, ‘we aren’t able to control this.’ It was something that was out of our control and we just had to have faith. It tested our family’s faith.” “It was very hard. It was so bad that she tried to kill herself. It kills you inside (as a parent) that you can’t fix it. She jumped out of a window, jumped in front of a car. My goal was just to keep her alive at that point. I wasn’t worried about soccer or school. It was a very tough year,” Marie said. “It was a lot of one-on-one time with her, trying to give her love, get her therapy and trying to get her to realize that there are other things out there in life besides soccer and that life is worth living. It’s almost like you would kill yourself to give her back everything she had. 
Jackie talked candidly about her multiple suicide attempts in high school, but realizes now her depression was brought on by the multiple concussions she suffered. She said she wants to bring more awareness about post-concussion syndrome and how serious it can be for young athletes. “She went from being a great athlete probably looking forward to a college scholarship to a girl who didn’t want to live anymore. It was very frustrating, and it caused a lot of stress. Scott and I would fight. He would be more of the tough love and I would be like, ‘just give her a hug!’ So it was a very stressful time. It was a very tough year for our family, but we were determined to get through it and get her better. She’s never going to play soccer again, but we were going to make sure she knew that life was worth living.” Torres knew she couldn’t sit back and watch her friend go through so much pain without trying to help. And Jackie said it was Morgan’s compassion that ultimately led to her recovery and gave her hope for a bright future even though she couldn’t play soccer anymore. “With the suicide attempts, she came up to me in confidence the day after and was telling me about it, and I immediately went to one of our teachers. I just wanted to do whatever I could to get her help at that point,” Torres said. “I think it was huge for her to even come to me and confide in me, and let me know she was going through that. If she hadn’t, it would have been way more serious. “That was a really big turning point for her, just asking for help and realizing that people were there for her and wanted to help her. I’ve been friends with Jackie since second grade, so to even think of not having her around just destroyed me. As soon as she told me in the hallway, I went and got help for her. I didn’t even think twice about it. Even at that young age, I didn’t care if she wanted me to tell somebody, I just knew I had to do it.” Road to recovery Torres’ willingness to speak up for her friend helped initiate the process that would eventually save Jackie’s life. Teachers at Ocean City went out of their way to help Jackie, she said, and the administration put her on a 504 plan, which allows concessions for kids who need such things as extra time to take a test, or another day or two in order to complete a project. The concussions made reading for long periods of time difficult for Jackie because there was damage in the back of her eyes. She had trouble focusing and concentrating, and without the help of the staff at Ocean City High School, and Stockton College — where Jackie hopes to earn a degree in three more semesters — she said she wouldn’t be where she is today. “Morgan was beyond helpful throughout the whole thing. She’s still one of my best friends. She was captain (senior year) and they named me an honorary captain. She always made sure that I felt included and that I knew I helped the team out even though I didn’t feel like I did. She looked out for me in school. She texted my mom a few times when I was depressed,” Jackie said. “And in school, I had some amazing teachers who looked out for me with my class work. Even the subjects that weren’t even theirs, they bent over backward to help me. The school was so great with accommodating me with a 504 plan. They didn’t give me any shortcuts, though, I still had to do all my work.” Jackie said initially she felt very out of place with everything that was going on. She felt as though no one understood what was going on with her, but as time went by she said people began to realize that concussions were what was causing everything. “I walked around school thinking everybody thinks I’m some kind of freak, like I’m this depressed kid who nobody wants to talk to. But toward senior year I think everybody started realizing this had to do with concussions. My friends and teachers saw that there was something real going on and it wasn’t just that I was depressed and mad at the world,” Jackie said. “I don’t think I would have fought hard and graduated if wasn’t for my teachers. To know that they are working hard and not just throwing kids out the door, to know someone believes in you like that. Ocean City, the people there really stepped up and I was able to graduate on time.” Said Scott Adams, “It was teachers who really took a role in helping a kid out. Yeah, it’s their job, but they didn’t have to do all that. They were passionate about helping Jackie. She was a liability, and I understood that, but the success to her recovery was being somewhat normal, too, and these teachers were the ones, and the nurses were very good, too.” New hope Surprisingly, Jackie is very candid when talking about her suicide attempts and the struggles she has gone through the last six years. She believes now that her life does have a purpose, and that purpose is to help people who are struggling with post-concussion syndrome, and to make a positive impact on her community by working with the Ocean City High School girls soccer team as a volunteer coach, as well as wit
h the Upper Township Challenger Sports program. She’s taking a semester off from Stockton College because this month she is starting an intensive 12-week therapy program at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. She will travel to Philadelphia several times per week to participate in various forms of therapy that she hopes will help her manage the effects of post-concussion syndrome, which include headaches, cognitive difficulties, and behavioral issues, such as irritability. Looking back now, she also has some clarity on what led to those suicide attempts. She is able to analyze her feelings and understand that they stemmed from the PCS. “I belong to a support group on Facebook for people with post-concussion syndrome, and everybody talks about how people look at them differently because they are depressed, and people think they are crazy. It’s not that, it’s just that you are in so much pain that you are desperate to find a way to relieve it,” Jackie said. “When you look at (NFL players who have committed suicide) you think, ‘I can’t imagine what they are feeling.’ But I can. The desperation you feel. I felt like I was a burden to my family and I was mad at myself because here was my family and friends trying everything, putting themselves out there. I felt like maybe if (I died) it would be easier on them. But now I realize that I was all messed up in the head.” Jackie says she is in a good place now. She helps with the UT Challenger program in the spring and fall, volunteers her time to be a part of the Stockton women’s soccer team, spends time with the Ocean City girls soccer squad, and also works for the recreation department in Ocean City with the youth sports programs. “All my friends (in high school) were in honors and doing really well, getting college scholarships and sports scholarships, and I was thinking, ‘that should be me. That’s where I should be.’ I think about that a lot, what would it have been like if I had played all four years of soccer and didn’t have these concussions? What college would I be playing for? But at the same time, I feel like this whole experience has made me who I am. It definitely has strengthened my faith. I’m really big into having faith and hope,” Jackie said. “It’s ironic, because during high school, I was the most hopeless kid ever, but now I really have hope. I have to credit Pes a lot for letting me stick with the program because I learned a lot of coaching aspects from him. Even after I graduated he let me come back and help out. I couldn’t stay away from the game, and to be able to give back and share my passion is probably the most fulfilling thing right now.” Jackie said she really feels a connection with the Challenger athletes because, much like them, she knows what it’s like to have to be on the sidelines not able to participate in the sports they love if not for the specialized league. “What really makes me satisfied is the league UT Challenger Sports. It’s a sports league with kids who have special needs, and a lot of them, like me, have to sit on the sidelines because they are different or have a disability. And I didn’t want them to have to feel that,” Jackie said. “I’ve dedicated a lot of time over there and we’ve expanded from 32 kids who just play soccer to soccer, bowling, baseball and Special Olympics and over 70 kids. The high school kids come over and volunteer and that’s how I got involved. Soccer has caused me a lot of pain in my life and it’s been so hard to stand on the sidelines, but at the same time I have the biggest passion for it and I can’t give it up. I’ve tried, but I keep finding my way back to it.” “She’s been a huge help with the challenger program. It just opened her eyes to how much people really value her as a person. She’s really helping these kids out, and I think she took a step back and realized she didn’t have to do everything at the same pace as everyone else,” Torres said. “There’s no timeline of when you have to do something, or a certain age that you have to accomplish something by. She finally got out of her own head and allowed herself to do things she really enjoys at her own pace. I think she’s doing great.” Jackie said that reaching out to people who may be suffering from similar symptoms has been very important to her, and getting involved in social media campaigns to raise awareness will play an important role in understanding what concussions do to people even well after the initial injury, she said. “I look back on my sophomore year in high school and feeling like the world was ending, soccer is going to be gone and I’m going to be a lifeless kid, to now it’s like soccer is maybe even a bigger part of my life. Maybe I didn’t win the state championship and didn’t get the college scholarship, but I’m pretty happy right now with where I am at,” Jackie said. “I couldn’t imagine anything better. I’m still struggling, but the biggest thing, this year, is trying to raise awareness about concussions. Not even to raise money, but just to raise awareness because I know there are people out there who are in that same spot as me and for them to know they are going to be OK.” Jackie credits Morgan with saving her life, but Torres says the opposite is true. “She always says to me that I saved her life, but if I didn’t have her in my life it would just destroy me. So she really saved both of us by getting better,” Torres said. “It’s really hard to say that you have a friend throughout your whole life, and she’s one of the only people I can say that about. I really do care about her, and I think she is doing great things, not only for herself, but for so many other people. Her family has a lot to do with her success with helping her along the way. I’m cheering for her the whole way.” Said her mother, “she’s come a long way. We’re very proud of her. Even with all of her struggles, she’s done very well in the past four years. She has worked very hard.” To say the last half-dozen years have been a roller coaster ride for Jackie Adams and her family would probably be a severe understatement. But as the calendar turns to 2015, Jackie said she can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And this time it’s not a bright light that means the onset of another severe headache. It’s the light that is showing her the path to her future. “The pain sucks and is unbearable at times, but at the same time, nothing lasts forever and you will find relief somehow. I’m in a good spot. Like my mom said, she wasn’t even sure if I was going to be alive to graduate high school,” Jackie said. “I still have really bad days, but I know who I am now. I’m Jackie Adams. I’m a person who loves to give back by working with people and helping people, and just sharing my passion and everything I’ve been through. “I know I’m not the only one who has tried to kill themselves, I’m not the only one who has had multiple concussions. I think it definitely makes a difference to know you are not alone. Find something that you love and stick with it, and that will help you get through it all.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]
Former Ocean City soccer player Jackie Adams has learned that her life is worth living
