From School Bus Driver to Future Teacher: The Metamorphosis of Brent Shedd

by Tiffiny Carlson, Executive Director of SPINALpedia and longtime disability writer

Not many people are born with the fortune of knowing what they want to do from a young age. But for Brent Shedd, 32, and a born and bred South Carolinian, he knew in his heart what he to wanted to be, and that was a school bus driver. “Since I was a baby, I had a love of school buses. I can tell you just about anything you need to know about school buses.”

Shedd went on to drive a special needs school bus and drove people with all kinds of disabilities, including those who used wheelchairs due to having a spinal cord injury to school before his injury. “I always had a heart for those with disabilities,” he says. And then Shedd himself became paralyzed last May 2022 in an ironic twist of fate.

“On February 12th, 2022, I was hiking with friends at Long Creek Falls in Long Creek, SC, and by May 14th, 2022, I was paralyzed.” After losing 165lbs and falling in love with hiking, Shedd injured the C7 section of his spinal cord in a fall while hiking, but his paralyzing symptoms did not occur right away. He slowly became paralyzed over the course of the few months due to an infection in his spinal cord, which was difficult to diagnose (you can read more in his blog here).

Once diagnosed, Shedd went through the denial phase, and hard. “I didn’t believe I was a quad, honestly. I denied it over and over. ‘God ain’t letting this happen to me. This is just a bump in the road. I’ll be back to normal and back on my bus in a few weeks.’ That time never came. In truth, I was terrified.”

By June, Shedd was discharged, which he says is one of the scariest things he has done since his injury. “It was chaos and on the first night I thought, ‘This will never work,’ especially when I was being put into my Clinitron bed. I was very independent and lived on my own,” he says. He now lives with his niece and her family.

To help with the frustrations of transitioning into his new life, he created the blog, “Why QUAD, Why Me?” which gives a humorous insight into his experience becoming paralyzed. “I started it just after I left the rehabilitation hospital. It’s a way of release for me; a way to get my feelings out and also document this journey of mine while teaching people about spinal cord injuries from my perspective.”

Shedd also decided to return to school after his injury after having to withdraw from Lee University as an able-bodied student 10 years prior due to family issues. This time however he decided to go to Liberty University to complete his degree in special education. “If I can’t drive my students,” he says, ” I can teach them.” Hard to argue that.

He is also determined to make use of this new season of his life and has set new goals for himself, like learning how to transfer, live on his own, drive again, and eventually work in the classroom as a teacher with a disability.

How has he been able to be so successful in such a short amount of time after his injury? “Journaling, purging toxic relationships while embracing new ones, and the very small circle of friends that have stuck by me post-injury and have gotten me this far, continue to carry me through.”

— Find Brent online via TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook @brentleyunleashed or through his website at brentleyunleashed.com