(WHAS11) - This story truly puts a face on the dangers of text messaging while driving.
Doctors say that it is a miracle that a 19-year-old DuPont Manual student is even alive.
He wants teenagers to listen to his message and learn from what happened to him.
Wil Craig is always helping his classmates with a smile on his face.
He hasn't met a student at Manual High School that he doesn't get along with.
He says he is now an A-lister at school.
Wil walks and talks a little differently now but it wasn't that long ago that he was just like everyone else.
“It's a battle everyday just to get up and look at myself in the mirror,” he says.
In January of 2008, Wil was on his way to a movie with this girlfriend at the time in Dubois County Indiana.
He says she was text messaging while driving and wrecked the car with Wil in the passenger seat.
Fortunately there were off duty EMT's behind them and they quickly responded to the crash.
Wil actually died three times before he got over the coma. He was in a come for eight weeks.
“I had a collapsed lung, four broken ribs. I had to have a tracheotomy,” says Wil.
Wil also suffered a traumatic brain injury and had to learn to walk and talk all over again.
When the crash happened, he was a senior in high school in southern Indiana and had enlisted to be a paratrooper with the Army National Guard.
“I want to be a hero,” he says.
And many say that he is.
He now tells his peers to put the phone down while driving.
Principal Larry Woolridge learned about Wil's story when he transferred to Manual in Louisville so he could get treatment at Frazier Rehab.
Woolridge said he knew Wil's story would make kids think twice so now he's helped set up speaking engagements for Wil at area schools.
“He has such a message; not only don’t text and drive but of forgiveness, redemption, just a powerful story,” says Principal Larry Woolridge.
Wil says sharing his story not only helps other kids but it helps him too.
“It warms my heart, its therapy for me,” he says.
Wil Craig has speeches lined up at Waggener High School, the Brown School and Central High School.
He will also appear in a PSA with Attorney General Jack Conway about text messaging and driving.
Wil's accident is one of the reasons politicians in Indiana passed laws against text messaging while driving.
This May, Wil gets the chance to put on his cap and gown and will graduate from Manual.
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