Sadie Raymond said she knew her son Corbin was there.
She knew it after the 17-year-old was in a car accident on July 4 that left him with injuries so severe, doctors told the family to say their goodbyes.
She knew it even after he was airlifted to a Boston hospital, where experts were uncertain the damage to his brain would allow him to ever live a normal life again.
Sadie said she knew it by the way he looked at her – by the way he recognized her.
“He looked at me and he knew who I was,” Sadie said. “It wasn’t a blank stare into nowhere. He knew I was his mother and he had things he wanted to say to me. He wanted to be here and he wanted to fight.”
And Sadie was right – Corbin was there, and he did survive. After four months of surgeries and rehabilitation at two different Boston hospitals, he learned how to talk, walk and eat again.
Meanwhile, his story spread through his hometown of Boscawen and beyond. Friends and family started a “Corbin Strong” campaign to raise money for his hospital costs. People bought bumper stickers and yard signs and T-shirts to cheer him on in his recovery.
On Thursday, crowds of more than a thousand supporters – some he knew, some he didn’t – lined the roads to welcome him home. They ushered him into town with a parade of police cars, fire trucks, balloons and posters. They waved and cheered as he and his mother drove by his high school and the street where he grew up.
“It was amazing to see all the people out there who believed in him like I did,” Sadie said, while relaxing with her family at their home later in the day. “They never gave up on him, just like we didn’t. They wanted to see him come home. They wanted to see him win.”
Corbin was planning on spending a day tubing on the river with four friends when the car they were traveling in crashed on July 4.
Boscawen police still haven’t released any information on what caused the accident, but said two teens had to be extracted using the Jaws of Life from the back seat of a 2005 Nissan Maxima, which crashed on River Road. Corbin was not driving.
The other teens’ injuries were not life threatening. Corbin was in serious condition because of trauma to his brain and internal bleeding, his mother said.
When doctors at Concord Hospital said there was nothing more they could do, Corbin was transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital, a level 1 trauma hospital. There, he endured 6½ hours more of surgery. Even then, doctors were not confident in his chances.
For days, his parents watched his breathing and the swelling in his brain with baited breath. Days turned into weeks in the hospital, and they tried to stay positive.
Sadie said she slept five feet away from him every night on a cushion in the seventh floor ICU room.
“He was hooked up to more machines than I could count,” she said. I knew every number, what every beep meant in my sleep – I learned which ones I should wake up for and which to ignore.”
The family discovered the extent of Corbin’s injuries: a fractured spine, broken collar bone, fractures in his skull, broken bones in his face, two broken shoulder blades, fractures in his rib cage, and later, an aneurysm and an infection in his finger from glass shards in the crash.
“We just tried to stay as hopeful as we could the whole time,” Sadie said. “We tried to look forward, not back.”
Sadie said one comforting thing was all of the support the family received from the community.
“I would check my phone and there would be dozens of messages from people checking in on us and wondering how he was doing,” she said.
She set up a CaringBridge account, where she could write journal entries updating loved ones on Corbin’s progress.
Slowly, Corbin’s brain activity began to improve and he was taken off sedation. Sadie said she saw more of him return every day.
Over time, a speech therapist came to work with Corbin, starting first with simple commands, like opening his mouth and sticking his tongue out, and then answering yes or no questions.
He was eventually transferred to Boston’s Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where he first learned how to sit at the edge of his bed, then stand up, then walk down the hallway, and up a flight of stairs.
When he returned to Boston Children’s Hospital last week for a followup appointment, his former nurses were amazed by his progress.
“He had them speechless, and he had everyone crying,” Sadie said. “They remembered how he was when he left the floor and they literally couldn’t believe how far he’d come.”
The crowds were thick outside Merrimack Valley Middle and High Schools on Thursday.
Seventh grader Kassidy Lankhorst held up a sign with Corbin’s name on it with a group of her friends as they lined the road where he would pass by.
“It’s really incredible – it’s like a miracle. He was pronounced dead and now he’s stable and walking,” she said. “It’s an emotional day.”
Longtime Boscawen resident Jane Beane said she had been following Corbin’s story closely on social media and wanted to come to show her support.
“I didn’t know Corbin, but now it’s like I’ve known him his whole life,” she said. “He’s amazing.”
Merrimack Valley Middle School teacher Beth Piroso said she thinks Corbin’s experience contains an important lesson for her students.
“The kids are so excited that he’s doing so well,” she said. “His perseverance is something that we strive for in school. He’s the perfect example of it.”
Sitting at home with his family eating cheese pizza later in the day, Corbin said he never realized just how much support he had in the community.
“It’s hard to believe it all,” he said.
Sadie said Corbin will start occupational, physical and speech therapy Tuesday at Elliot Hospital in Manchester. He will be tutored at home until he is ready to go back to school.
For now, their focus will be improving his short term memory – something he still has trouble with.
Corbin said memories from the past months are slowly coming back. He doesn’t remember the accident – but he remembers getting ready to go tubing, and riding in the car.
“It’s scary to think of what else is in my head that I can’t remember right now,” he said.
Sadie said she’s just happy to have him home – and alive. Everything else they can take in stride.
“He’s changing so rapidly and improving so fast – faster than anybody ever expected,” she said.