Atlanta Teen Raising Money for Best Friend After Football Accident

An Atlanta teen is raising money for a friend’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury during a football game. Marcos San Miguel and Jordan Sloan have been best friends since 6th grade. The two bonded over their love of sports, San Miguel is a star on the basketball court and Sloan on the football field. Sloan was 15 when he took a hit in the 3rd quarter of the homecoming football game at Pace Academy in September 2020.

Sloan walked off the field but was rushed to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta where he underwent brain surgery. Jordan had suffered a very rare brain stem injury that made it difficult for doctors to give a prognosis for his recovery. He would remain hospitalized there for the next several months before being moved to the Shepherd Center for rehabilitation.

His recovery has been a long road from being on a ventilator and unable to blink to doing rigorous physical therapy and taking virtual classes back at school. Sloan goes to rehabilitation sessions 6 days a week to regain his mobility and strength-with the goal of being able to one day play sports again.

San Miguel has been by his best friend’s side cheering him on and found a way to support him through basketball. San Miguel began taking pledges for every charge he took in a basketball game, in order to give Sloan’s family the money necessary to buy items not covered by insurance, like a manual wheelchair and reformer machine. He said “I really just wanted to do whatever I could to help. He would have done something similar for me.”

So far, he has raised over $14,000 through his fundraiser “Take a Charge for Jordan Sloan”. The remainder of all funds raised will go to Shepherd Center for their Adaptive Sports program.
San Miguel hopes that once Jordan has a manual wheelchair and reaches a few new therapy goals, he can arrange for a wheelchair basketball game for Jordan and some of our former teammates. Sloan’s mother, Jasmine Jamieson said she is grateful for the way San Miguel has stepped up to help and while she doesn’t know if she will ever be able to really thank him- she will try for the rest of her life.