Do you believe in miracles.
Many people say they do, until life tests that belief in ways that feel unbearable.
For the Long family of Alabama, belief became survival, and hope became something they watched rise from a hospital bed against every medical expectation.
Twenty-one-year-old Collin Long, a college student with a future unfolding in front of him, was living an ordinary day six months ago when everything changed in an instant.
While working at the Auburn University Golf Club, Collin fell from a gator tractor, suffering a devastating traumatic brain injury that would leave doctors fearing the worst.
The impact was severe.
Collin’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and emergency crews made the urgent decision to airlift him to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, where trauma specialists were waiting, though hope was painfully thin.
Those early hours were filled with fear that words struggle to hold.
Collin was critically injured, unresponsive, and clinging to life by a margin so small that even experienced medical professionals braced themselves for loss.
Among them was the flight nurse who would later tell Collin’s mother, Amy Long, something that still echoes in her heart.
She believed Collin had less than a one percent chance of survival.
During the flight, she expected his heart to stop at any moment.
Amy, a principal at South Smith’s Station Elementary School, stood on the other side of the unimaginable, forced into the place no parent ever wants to stand.
She prayed not with certainty, but with desperation, trusting God with her son’s life when nothing else remained within her control.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months.
Collin survived the initial trauma, but survival was only the first mountain.
What followed was a long, exhausting road of rehabilitation that took him through Jacksonville, Auburn, and Birmingham, each location marking another chapter in a fight that demanded everything he had.
Relearning how to move.
Relearning how to speak.
Relearning how to exist in a body that had been violently altered.
There were setbacks.
There were moments when progress felt painfully slow.
There were nights when Amy wondered if the miracle she was praying for had already reached its limit.
And then something remarkable began to happen.
Collin started walking.
Then he started talking.
Then, quietly and almost unbelievably, he began reclaiming pieces of his old life.
Today, six months after doctors once prepared his family for goodbye, Collin is doing what few thought he ever would.
He is taking online college courses through Southern Union.
He is engaging with the future again.
“Collin is back to normal,” Amy says, before adding words that sound impossible to anyone unfamiliar with his story, “with the exception of missing one third of his skull.”
Yes, one third.
Because of the severity of his injury, a significant portion of Collin’s skull had to be removed to relieve pressure on his brain.
A reconstructive surgery is planned for March, and until then, he cannot drive or resume certain daily activities.
But even with that reality, the progress is undeniable.
Collin is alert, engaged, learning, and alive.
Amy describes her son’s journey not as medical luck, but as divine intervention.
She is unwavering in her belief that what happened to Collin cannot be explained by statistics or science alone.
When she and Collin recently spoke again with Autumn Lindsey, the flight nurse who once feared he would not survive the helicopter ride, emotion filled the conversation.
Autumn invited them both to attend the LifeSavers 45 Years in Alabama celebration on May 13, hoping for a reunion that once seemed impossible.
The woman who expected to lose him mid-flight will now stand beside the young man who lived.
That moment alone feels like something written for a movie script, yet it is real, unfolding quietly in Alabama, carried by faith, persistence, and a mother’s refusal to let go.
“God performed a miracle on Collin,” Amy says plainly.
Not as a headline.
Not as exaggeration.
But as a truth she has lived through day by day.
Collin Long’s story is not just about survival.
It is about what happens when hope refuses to leave the room, even when doctors prepare for the worst.
It is about the unseen strength of families, the skill and compassion of medical teams, and the rare moments when life bends away from tragedy and toward grace.
In a world heavy with difficult news, Collin’s comeback is a reminder that miracles do not always arrive loudly.
Sometimes they arrive slowly, step by step, class by class, heartbeat by heartbeat.
If you have a moment today, take it to celebrate Collin.
Congratulate him.
Share his story.
Because sometimes, the world needs good news.
And sometimes, that good news looks exactly like a young man who was given less than a one percent chance, walking forward anyway.
