BATON ROUGE — It was earlier this month when a crash at Perkins Road and Bles Avenue left one man dead and another fighting for his life with a traumatic brain injury.
It was around 7:22 a.m. on Sept. 15 when the crash happened. Jack Luxemburg, 26 was just leaving for work in his 1998 Dodge Ram, waiting at a stop sign at the intersection of Bles Avenue and Perkins, when another vehicle ran off the road, overturned and hit Luxemburg’s truck, police say.
According to Baton Rouge Police, the driver of a Chevy Impala was going east on Perkins at a high rate of speed. The Chevy ran off the road to the right, hitting a curb, which flipped the car and hit Luxemburg’s truck. Luxemburg’s stepmother, Lesley Shannon, said the Chevy hit the truck on the same side as Luxemberg, and that both men had to be cut out of their vehicles.
Luxemberg was initially unresponsive, she told UWK, but medical personnel were able to get his pulse back and he was rushed to Our Lady of the Lake. The other driver, 22-year-old Malachi Antoine, was also rushed to the hospital, but later died of his injuries, according to BRPD.
“It was just a regular day, and I think people realize exactly how fast something can go wrong,” Shannon told UWK. “I was actually getting ready to leave for work. I was walking from my kitchen to my carport, and I got the notification on 360: crash detection.”
She said she immediately began trying to contact her stepson, but he wasn’t responding. Once she saw his phone’s location moving toward the OLOL hospital, however, she knew something had happened. She then contacted her daughter, Luxemburg’s stepsister, who attends nursing school and asked her to go to the ER and check whether everything was OK.
“And she called me back a few minutes later and said it is not.”
Luxemburg had a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the crash. His nose hit the steering wheel on impact, breaking it, and he has a gash around his head, Shannon explained. In addition, he has a large hematoma at the back of his head.
“The whole back of his head is bruised. But he got so lucky. The bleeding was between his scalp and his skull. Had it been between his skull and his brain, it would have probably cut off blood flow to his brain before they could have gotten him to surgery,” she said.
The 26-year-old stayed in the ICU for several days, before he was discharged and is now in the in-house rehab center. There, he’ll be going through physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, Shannon said.
“He is making some progress. He is awake. He is speaking. He has a lot of brain fog,” she added. Because of the TBI, Luxemburg’s memory has gaps. His stepmom said that he can recall mostly “older memories” but has trouble with newer ones and new information for now. He doesn’t recall the crash at all, she said, and only learned about the other driver after a visitor told him.
“He’s dealing with some depression regarding the other driver losing his life,” Shannon said. “When asked if there’s anything someone can do for him, he often answers to go down to the chapel and pray for the driver.”
A few weeks out from the crash, Luxemburg is still dealing with left-side weakness and while his balance is improving, he’s still very unsteady.
Overall, Shannon thinks it’s a blessing that Luxemburg is doing as well as he is, despite the brain injuries: “He was restrained, and they’ve done MRIs and CTs and ultrasounds on everything except the soles of his feet, as far as I can tell. And he has no internal bleeding otherwise—other than the head. He has no spinal injuries, spleen—you know, the things that they’re expecting.”
At the time of the crash, the young man was working two jobs, one of them just on the weekends. Because of needing to stay in the hospital so long, Shannon said he lost his primary position which has also dampened his spirits. Even though it’s possible he could be rehired down the road, it will be a long time before he’s able to work so he’s looking at high medical bills at this time.
To help Luxemburg and his family with medical expenses, donations can be made to their GoFundMe.
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