Community rallies around high school girls soccer coach injured in car crash
By Beret Leone
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STILLWATER, Minnesota (WCCO) — The Stillwater community and beyond are rallying around a high school girls soccer coach while he recovers from a spinal injury.
Shawn Nelson is a husband and father to four young women, the Stillwater girls soccer coach and a small business owner. You could say he’s a mover.
“He doesn’t sit still for very long,” Shawn Nelson’s daughter, Haley Nelson said. “He’s usually quite busy.”
These days though, Shawn is forced to take things a little slower. On an icy night in December, Shawn Nelson lost control of his car and launched into a nearby ditch.
The crash chipped a piece of his L2 vertebrae. Doctors say it could have been much worse.
“To say that all my family was home at the time it happened, oh my gosh, I couldn’t be more thankful,” Shawn Nelson said.
Shawn Nelson is in good spirits but still has weeks of recovery and rehab ahead — along with a stack of medical bills and an unknown return to work after the crash.
“I was actually Dad’s first call,” Haley Nelson said.
Shawn Nelson doesn’t remember much from that December night.
“I would love to tell you about it, but I honestly can’t remember a lot about it,” Shawn Nelson said
But what he can remember and won’t soon forget is this: an outpouring of love and support from the Stillwater community — and beyond.
“It means so much to me. It really does. It’s humbling to me,” Shawn Nelson said.
An online fundraiser has collected more than $25,000 for the Nelson family in just three days. Donations flooded in because as the fundraiser reads, if the table were turned, “Shawn would be the first to call and ask ‘how can I help?'”
“There’s a lot of names on that GoFundMe that we haven’t seen in years that are friends of ours and I am so blessed to have the support and network that’s out there,” he said.
It’s making things a little easier for the family of six while Dad is down.
“I don’t know what to say,” Shawn Nelson said. “I am so grateful so thankful for those people around me.”
Shawn Nelson has a bit of a road ahead. He tells us he’s hoping to move without his brace soon and is eager to get back to normal life — and helping others. His daughters and their boyfriends have been helping with his snow removal business. Shawn Nelson says he’s not only grateful but proud.
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