Gwinnett baseball player back in the game after life-altering accident

ATLANTA - Caiden Wilson has grown up on baseball.

"I've been playing baseball my whole life, ever since probably 3-years-old," Wilson says.  "The first word I ever said was 'baseball.'"

But on April 13, 2022, a freak accident changed the  Suwanee 16-year-old's life.

Wilson's team, North Gwinnett, was warming up for a game against Loganville High, when, in the batting cage, the freshman player loaded the pitching machine.

Before he could step behind a protective screen, it happened.

"My teammate hit it right back at me," Wilson says.

That ball slammed into the right side of his skull, and everything went dark.

"My teammates have told me I fell to the ground and kind of was like just laying there," Wilson says.  "And, then I woke up, like, screaming in pain, and they ran to get my mom and the coaches."

His mom  was setting up the concessions stands, when a player came running.

"So, I ran in there and immediately knew that we needed to call 911," Becca Wilson says.

"The only thing I recall is my mom was beside me, and I told her I felt like I was dying," Caiden Wilson says.

"I said, 'Not today you're not," his mother says.  "You're, we're all dying, but you're not dying today!"

Wilson was rushed by ambulance to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Scottish Rite campus.

Children's neurosurgeon Dr. David Wrubel says Caiden was alert and talking when he arrived but quickly began to deteriorate.

One of his pupils was extremely dilated, a sign of intense pressure on his brain.

"People who developed dilated pupils like that many times will pass away from the pressure on the brain if that is not relieved very quickly," Dr. Wrubel says.

Wilson had a fractured skull, and a ruptured artery just below it.

"He had a very large bleed that was outside the brain, but inside the skull," Wrubel says.

They call the blod clot that was forming an epidural hematoma, and the clock was ticking.

"With an epidural hematoma, if you get to them in time, most of them do well," Dr. Wrubel explains.  "If you don't get to them in time, they have the other outcome. And he was right on the cusp of the other outcome."

In the OR, Dr. Wrubel and his neurosurgery team were able to relieve the pressure and save Caiden.

Four days later, he was moved from the ICU to the neurology floor to begin physical, occupational and speech therapy.

"It was it was a struggle," Wilson says.  "I was struggling, balancing, I couldn't walk for the most part on my own."

His parents say the experience of watching their son work his way back from his injury was humbling.

"Putting that foot on the balance beam the first time and falling off of the beam, I think, was eye-opening for all of us," Becca Wilson says.

"It's shifted our priorities into focus," Tim Wilson, Caiden's father, says. "I used to worry about when Caiden got on the baseball field, 'How is he going to perform?' Right? I think I'm just blessed to see him walk on to the baseball field."

Today, Caiden Wilson is back on the baseball diamond, playing third base.

"My first game back was scary, a lot of nerves," he says.

But quickly, the game he loves, came back to him.

"It just came natural," Wilson smiles.  "I mean, this is what I've been doing my whole life. Go right back to it. "