Family of Aiken crash victim looks at long road to recovery

AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - A South Carolina man is on a long road to recovery after his family says he’s survived more than five injuries he shouldn’t have.

Investigators are still seeking answers about what caused the car crash in Aiken on Friday. The South Carolina Highway Patrol says the accident happened around 9:30 p.m.

They say a Honda Accord with just the driver was traveling south, and a Chevy truck with three people was traveling north when they crashed into each other.

Troopers say Jalen Eubanks was one of the passengers in the truck. Doctors tell his family he’s lucky to be alive.

The family says it’s all thanks to God.

“He has his sternum fractured, and all of his ribs are broken. His ankle was broken, basically torn off. They had to repair it, and he’s got a fixation device on the outside. His lungs had collapsed. They would put a chest tube in to take some of that blood and stuff off of there. He took most of the force to his chest,” said LeeAnn Eubanks, Jalen’s mother.

With two surgeries down, doctors tell his mother they’ll make decisions on future surgeries on his arm, neck, and spine as the swelling goes down and there’s progress.

“God is in charge of everything. I know that if it wasn’t for God, Jalen would not be here, because nobody could have took the kind of injuries that he had. Nobody else could have did that without the Lord’s help. God definitely protected him and kept him safe. He knew I needed him,” she said.

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