Cade back home after months in Atlanta hospital Pepperell grad still recovering after January wreck

It was a homecoming that Cade Tanner won’t forget any time soon.

Cade was critically injured in a wreck on Rockmart Highway early in the morning of Jan. 24. On Thursday he arrived home from the Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta to be greeted by dozens of friends and family members.

A large crowd gathered at the family home in the Flint Hill community of southeast Floyd County. They lined Brumblelow Road and the Tanners’ driveway, waving signs of support as the specially equipped van brought Cade home for the first time since the wreck.

The teenager, who turned 19 in the hospital, said the turnout and support from his extended family, church family and friends “meant everything” to him.

Cade was a passenger in a vehicle that was southbound on Rockmart Highway when the driver lost control and it flipped down an embankment near Shiflett Road. He was ejected.

He spent five days in the ICU at Floyd Medical Center before being transferred to the spinal center in Atlanta on Jan. 29.

The 2020 Pepperell High School graduate said Thursday that he felt positive about his recovery only after he was finally able to sleep at night.

His doctors have given Cade and his family some hope for a major recovery.

“This is the most determined to do something that I’ve ever been about anything in my life,” Cade said after greeting folks.

He is currently paralyzed, fundamentally from the head down, though he does have some limited use of his right arm.

One of the first things he wanted to do was pet his dog Loki. His mother, April Tanner, helped him extend his arm once Loki realized who was sitting in the big wheelchair.

Photos by Doug Walker Above: April Tanner helps her son Cade Tanner reach out to pet his dog Loki when the teenager returned home Thursday after more than two months at the Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta. Cade was paralyzed in a January wreck on Rockmart Highway but he and his doctors have hope he’ll regain mobility. Right: A confetti cannon sprays paper into the air as family and friends welcome Cade home.

Doug Walker Friends and family of Cade Tanner line the driveway of the family home to welcome the 19-year-old who spent the last two months at the Shepherd Center.

Doug Walker Ava Joy Wright (left), 5, and Abbie Grace Johnson, 7, are among the large group of family and friends who turned out to welcome Cade Tanner home from the Shepherd Center hospital Thursday.

Doug Walker Michael Helton works on a ramp Thursday from the garage into the home of Cade Tanner, who was paralyzed in a January wreck.