A motorcycle crash nearly cost Caleb Deleon his life last fall, but the 40 surgeries that followed offered a new perspective for the 24-year-old Marine.
“I’ve come to appreciate life a lot more than I did before,” says the Ennis native. “It showed me how to appreciate the things that people don’t really notice.”
That includes the trauma care he received at Methodist Mansfield Medical Center, where those surgeries took place. But it also includes the simple act of walking, lifting weights again, and even riding a horse.
“I wasn’t even expected to walk again until 2027,” Caleb says. “My family’s support and the Marine Corps had something to do with why I am where I am now.”
So did the doctors and nurses at Methodist Mansfield who he says “did an amazing job” helping him heal.
LOVE FOR MOTORCYCLES
Motorcycles run in the family for Caleb, who, like his father, enjoys the independence of riding.
“I don’t even know how to explain it,” he says of the appeal of riding on two wheels, “kind of like freedom in the air.”
The crash that changed Caleb’s life happened in October 2025, on his first day home after years serving in North Carolina. He was in downtown Ennis when another car pulled out in front of him.
“By the time I realized the car was there, it was already too late,” Caleb recalls. “Everything just kind of went dark.”
Motorcycles were a passion for Caleb, but that changed after his crash in downtown Ennis.
The impact shattered Caleb’s right arm and split his pelvis in two, an injury that caused him to lose a massive amount of blood. Paramedics rushed him to Methodist Mansfield, where the trauma team stopped the bleeding.
“He was in hemorrhagic shock,” says Richard Miller, MD, trauma surgeon on the medical staff at Methodist Mansfield. “He required a big resuscitation of blood and a huge team in the trauma bay just to get things under control.”
Once Caleb’s blood pressure was stabilized, he was taken to the operating room, where half a dozen trauma surgeons worked to repair his wounds over multiple surgeries.
“It’s a big team approach,” Dr. Miller says. “I still remember the moment we knew he was going to make it. There’s a shift that happens in the room — you feel the whole team exhale together.”
Caleb lost an enormous amount of blood and needed multiple transfusions before surgery.
HELP FROM ARMY COLONEL
Caleb woke up two weeks after the crash surrounded by family but unaware of how close he had come to dying.
“I started off making jokes to make light of the situation,” he says, “until my mom and sister told me about my injuries and that I could have lost my life.”
All told, Caleb spent five weeks at Methodist Mansfield, under the care of Dr. Miller, Sherry Sixta, MD, and Jay Johannigman, MD, trauma surgeons on the medical staff.
Once a Marine, always a Marine: Caleb served in North Carolina before his crash.
Dr. Johannigman, who retired last year as a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, would be instrumental in getting Caleb rehabilitated at Brooke Army Medical Center outside San Antonio, where he would learn to walk again over the next two months.
“Dr. Jay has been there from the very beginning, and he’s always kept in touch with me,” Caleb says, “so it’s been really great having him there.”
At a follow-up visit during his rehabilitation, Caleb surprised his doctors by walking into the office just a few months after suffering his devastating injuries. Those are the most gratifying moments for any trauma team, Dr. Miller says.
“It really is like we’re taking care of our family,” Dr. Miller says. “That’s the way we should always treat our patients, like they’re one of our own.”
Caleb was eager to get on a horse once he had healed enough after the crash.
‘I DIDN’T EVEN HESITATE’
Today, Caleb is back to working construction for his father, but he’s put the Marines and riding motorcycles behind him. Now he prefers riding a horse.
Not long ago, Caleb’s brother called asking if he wanted to join him in helping round up a few of their cousin’s cattle that had gotten loose.
“I didn’t even hesitate. I said yes, not knowing whether I could,” Caleb says. “I got on the horse, and we spotted the cattle and immediately took off.”
It was a moment that surprised both Caleb and his brother, but maybe not the trauma team that nursed him back to health at Methodist Mansfield, which is pursuing Level II Trauma Center status.
“Caleb was one of our first big, bad trauma cases,” Dr. Miller says. “We had practiced a lot, we had seen several before, we educated the ED, we established trauma bays, we’ve got a blood bank that works incredibly well — all of that was put in place just before Caleb got there.”
That preparation means the world to Caleb’s mother, Griselda, because 24 years was not nearly enough time to have her son around.
“They do amazing work with my son,” she says. “Because of them, I still get to hug him.”
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