One of his favorite tasks is setting up for the babies and children who come in for therapy. He’s helping patients in other ways as well.
A shooting survivor builds a new life with help from JCMC rehabilitation therapists.
Matt Bolger, 20, has a job. As a therapy aide at the Outpatient Rehabilitation Services department at Jersey City Medical Center (JCMC), Matt prepares the hot packs and towels patients use to relax tight muscles before physical therapy, and the cold packs they use to prevent inflammation afterward. He assists with equipment and sorts and fills out paperwork.
He works on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He’s also at the rehab department on Mondays and Thursdays, as a therapy patient himself. That’s because Matt was shot in the head during a robbery more than three years ago, suffering severe traumatic brain injury. So Matt’s job is a very big deal. It represents progress from years of hard work in therapy and, even more, a pathway forward. “Here, we look beyond therapy goals and toward helping patients achieve their life goals,” says Allison Zweiman, Director of Rehabilitation Services at JCMC. “We are invested in our patients, and in giving them a connection to their next step.”
The road back
In October of 2015, Matt was walking down the street with a friend when two armed men jumped out of an SUV and demanded money. He was shot as he tried to run away. The year before, Matt had played on his high school’s championship baseball team. After the shooting, he had paralysis on the right side of his body, along with difficulty talking and breathing. He had 11 brain surgeries and spent five months in a rehabilitation center. He’s been in outpatient therapy ever since, relearning how to walk, perform fine motor skills, and connect his thoughts to words.
Therapy sessions are intense. He works with a rotating group of occupational therapists, speech therapists and physical therapists, who keep changing up his exercises to extend his skills. In physical therapy, he might be balancing on a large exercise ball, throwing bean bags into ever-farther baskets, or maneuvering through an obstacle course of foam shapes. “The therapists make him want to push himself,” says his father John, a Jersey City firefighter. “He hates working on that ball, but he requested it because he is motivated to do more.”
As Matt’s skills increased, Felicia Bonvicino, a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant who has been working with Matt since he first came to JCMC, had a brainstorm: The rehab department had an opening for a part-time aide. Matt was perfect for the job, and vice versa. It was a chance to apply what he was learning to the real world. Since taking the job, Matt smiles more, Bonvicino says. “There’s pep in his step,” she reports. One of his favorite tasks is setting up for the babies and children who come in for therapy. He’s helping patients in other ways as well. “I will often have a patient who’s in a lot of pain or who is very discouraged,” one of the therapists recently told him. “But when they see how far you’ve come, and you joke around with them, you make them happy. You give them hope.”
What motivates Matt to keep going? “People are so nice,” he says. “Every day is difficult, but it’s all right. I’m moving forward.”
To learn more about Outpatient Rehabilitation Services at Jersey City Medical Center, call 201.915.2410.