Last of three parts.
Matt Miller was determined to resume his life where he'd left off - even completing his fall semester as a junior at the University of Virginia.
Matt left the hospital Nov. 26, sooner than anyone had expected, and a few days later scheduled a physics midterm for Dec. 8.
The 20-year-old from St. Davids, training for a triathlon, had broken every bone in his face and suffered brain injury on Nov. 2, when he lost control of his bike and smashed, face-first, into a car going 40 miles an hour.
Three days before the physics test, Matt had a follow-up appointment with J. Forrest Calland, the trauma surgeon in charge of his care at the University of Virginia Medical Center.
"By definition, there's no way Matt can have 100 percent of his mental capacity back," Calland told Matt and his father. "My gut's telling me this is not a good idea."
Matt still had a tracheostomy in his throat and his jaw was wired shut. He desperately wanted to argue his case but couldn't speak.
His father, Mike Miller, was vehemently against his taking the test. Matt was premed, with all A's in sciences. Why rush? Why risk a bad grade?
Matt took his Physics 201 midterm - 20 problems on harmonic motion, waves and sound, fluids, and thermodynamics.
The decision did not surprise his longtime girlfriend from Radnor High, Emily Privette.
"He seems to single-mindedly pursue his goals with the belief that he is in control of his own destiny. And, to achieve them, all that is required is that he always give his best," she said.
A few days later, his professor, Hung Q. Pham, sent this e-mail:
"Matt, your midterm grade is 19/20. Congratulations."
Three students out of 184 in the class had scored higher.
"For him to do that well after the accident . . . blew my mind," Pham said.
"Surviving brain injury, getting out of the hospital rapidly, that's one thing," said Calland, hearing the score. "But actually learning physics while recovering from brain injury, this part dumbfounds me."
On Saturday, Dec. 13, Mike Miller wanted to visit the man who had saved his son on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Matt had been training for a triathlon, on an 85-mile ride, at the time of the accident.
A passing motorist just happened to be Mark Harris, an anesthesiologist who'd graduated from Temple University Medical School and knew how to get Matt breathing again.
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