Restaurateur fighting battle to move again

Left a quadriplegic by car crash, Mark Jones pushes on.

‘Truthfully, right now there is no prognosis. They will tell you a lot of it they just don’t know. It could come back quickly. It could come back slowly. It might get to a certain point and stop. You just don’t know.’ Mark Jones Columbus restaurateur

Columbus restaurateur Mark Jones is sitting in an Atlanta rehab hospital clinging to hope of a full recovery, but balancing it against the reality of his situation.

And that reality is a tough one.

Jones, 53, is a quadriplegic from injuries suffered in an early morning car crash on May 20 when he plowed his truck into the rear of an 18-wheeler in Phenix City as he was traveling home from an outof-town trip. After undergoing surgery in Columbus to relieve pressure on his spinal cord, Jones was moved to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, one of the top rehab hospitals in the nation.

“Truthfully, right now there is no prognosis,” he said recently. “They will tell you a lot of it they just don’t know. It could come back quickly. It could come back slowly. It might get to a certain point and stop. You just don’t know.”

The reality is one tinged with uncertainty, something that does not come easy for a man who has built nine successful restaurants from scratch over the last two decades.

“It can be a year in therapy, day in and day out,” he said. “It can be six months. Dealing with a spinal cord injury you just don’t know. If you ask me, I am going to try to beat this, hopefully, over the summer. I don’t know, either. It is a very slow process. Moving a foot is almost like trying to move a 20-pound brick with your mind. It’s not the easiest thing in the world.”

Jones has a high cervical spinal cord injury. In layman’s terms, it’s not pretty — and it’s life-altering. He is paralyzed from the neck down, with only minimal function in his arms and legs. A lift swing is used to get him out of the bed to his wheelchair and he’s working daily with the physical and occupational therapy team at the Shepherd Center.

“I think they are going to give me the best chance to hopefully overcome whatever,” he said.

And whatever can be daunting.

During an occupational therapy session this week, you could see the baby steps Jones is taking to his new normal. He clearly had some core strength and he can move his left leg better than he can move his right one.

“My right leg just started moving last week,” he said. “My left leg has been moving for a couple of weeks.”

His right arm is getting stronger each day, but he has range of motion issues with both of his arms. It’s a daily struggle, one that his wife, Sheri, is witnessing every step of the way.

“I see him making progress,” she said by his bedside this week. “It is not an easy journey. He wants to walk out of here next week. All of the odds are against him. I have to see the reality of the situation and not to bring his hopes and dreams down. Of course, that’s what we hope for. We have to live in the moment and have faith in the future.”

One of the reasons for that faith is Jones’ dogged determination, a grinder’s work ethic that has allowed him to build a successful business.

“His determination is there to overcome this,” Sheri said. “I see the fight he is putting to get through it. There is nothing easy about it. I think the hard thing is he has all the demons he’s fighting with and on a different level I have all the things I am dealing with.

Some days, he has to be in a good mood when I am going off the deep end and there are days when he is going off the deep end that I have to be in a good mood.”

And he worries a lot — about his family, Sheri and their six children, ranging in age from 9 to 29. It has been tough on the kids, he said.

“Some handle it better than others, but I think they are all dealing with it really well,” Jones said. “I worry about my 9-year-old and my 17-year-old — who am I kidding — I worry about all of them. You’re a dad and you are always worried about your kids.”

He also worries about his businesses. He talks to employees in the restaurants daily and has a camera app on his phone where he can check-in from time to time.

“That is my sole means of taking care of my family,” Jones said. “That is probably my biggest concern, right there, but I am thinking of a lot of different things. I can’t sit here and focus on what I have ahead of me in therapy 24/7 because I would go crazy. I am thinking about new directions to go. What Columbus needs. How I can do better with what I do?”

Jones started building his restaurant empire in 1998 when he opened Hunter’s Pub, a popular southern Harris County steakhouse. He owns, or co-owns, five restaurants in downtown Columbus, including Smoke Bourbon and BBQ, Black Cow, The Poultry Company, Flip Side Burgers & Tacos and Plucked Up Chicken and Biscuits. He also owns Mark’s Pies and Thighs in Harris County, Ready, Steak, Go takeout restaurants and Mark’s City Grill.

In addition to the physical recovery, the situation has put Jones in a financial hardship.

After the Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance company announced they would no longer support and offer individual coverage in Georgia, the Joneses were forced to explore a new insurance policy. During the process of seeking a new policy, the crash occurred, leaving the family uninsured.

“Our family has helped out,” Jones said on how he is paying the mounting medical bills. “We are dealing with it day by day and we will cross some of those bridges when we get there. It’s a scary outlook. Definitely one I never wanted to be in and I never thought we would be at this point.”

Many causes and organizations have turned to Jones when they were fundraising. He has given thousands of dollars in gift certificates and donations over the years and had organized benefits. When a tornado hit Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 2011, he raised about $10,000 for a relief effort being sponsored by Alabama Coach Nick Saban.

Now, Jones finds himself the one needing the help.

“It’s not easy and it’s different,” he said. “I would much rather be doing an event for somebody else. I never thought about me in those type situations.”

A GoFundMe account has been set up with the goal of raising significant money to help Jones cover his expenses. An account has also been set up at the local Synovus banks.

For Jones, this is a battle he is fighting with all the strength he can muster.

“Mentally, I am walking out of here next week, but sometimes you got to look at it a little bit different,” Jones said. “My goal is to get all my functions back and I hope that’s where we end up, but I also have to be realistic. That’s the hardest part to deal with. It’s one of those bridges we have to cross when we get there.”