Recovery

The cost of prosthetic legs can range from a few thousand dollars to more than $50,000, said Karen Lundquist with the Amputee Coalition. And insurance companies sometimes don’t cover specific types of devices such as microprocessor prosthetics because they’re deemed experimental.

Insurance companies sometimes also put in place lifetime and annual caps that can severely limit coverage, she said.

Tuskegee University has offered to continue paying Jabari Bailey’s athletic scholarship, though his playing days are over, his father said. The university is also promoting a GoFundMe account to help offset various costs.

“The university wants people to know that we’re gonna do all we can to assist him in achieving his goals,” said Cox, the assistant athletic director. When he comes back to school, the athletic department will help find work for him to do and offer other support, he said.

The family expects that he’ll be out of college for a full year doing rehab. But Jabari Bailey says he still plans to complete his degree and start running businesses on his own, maybe real estate or a restaurant.

“I’m still going to do big things. You can believe that,” he said. Headed home

The physical therapy session July 26 aimed to simulate the conditions Jabari Bailey would face when he went home the next day. The family home in Cordova has stairs, so he practiced climbing steps on crutches.

The family owns a big dog that might knock him off balance, so the physical therapists simulated this, too, by letting Jabari walk on crutches while giving him gentle shoves and stepping in front of him.

The athlete swung on the crutches up and down the hallways in the rehab hospital. When he reached the spot where two hallways intersect, he paused, head down, and leaned on the crutches to rest.

Then he continued.

Reach reporter Daniel Connolly at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.