Deputy Mike Hollingsworth stands in front of the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. Hollingsworth is back on light duty following a six-week hospital stay, therapy and rehabilitation after being hit by a car in February.(Brian Loden The Vicksburg Post)

[9/20/04]Deputy Mike Hollingsworth has achieved a milestone that, frankly, is hard to believe.

After sustaining a direct hit from a vehicle seven months ago, the 38-year-old is back on the job at the Warren County Sheriff’s Department.

“They just approved me for light duty, which is desk duty,” Hollingsworth said of his release by doctors. That means he takes reports and serves the public from inside the sheriff’s office, Sheriff Martin Pace said.

For many days in February, it was Hollingsworth’s life, not the extent of his duties, that was on the line. He was knocked in the air, fell on his head and suffered brain trauma that resulted in a two-week coma followed by six weeks in Jackson hospitals.

The pace of healing for his brain injury has been slowest, he said, but has exceeded the expectations of neurologist Dr. Stuart Yablon.

“Matter of fact, I guess I cut my recovery in half, according to him,” Hollingsworth said. Yablon is medical director of the brain-injury program at Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson.

Hollingsworth said he was also grateful to all those who had helped him and his family after he was injured.

“Of course I’m sure there was a lot of prayers that went up for me and the family from people we don’t even know,” he said.

Though Hollingsworth suffered no broken bones, one of his knees was injured and he underwent surgery for that problem on July 6. Now he spends about an hour a day three times a week working to rehabilitate it.

“Hopefully, rehabbing the knee will be the last obstacle we have to cross,” he said. He added that, with his doctors’ approval, he would like to return to karate, which he had practiced for about two years before he was injured, and to start jogging for his knee and for general fitness.

Medical personnel thought his overall fitness level before the wreck had been a factor in his recovery, he said.

“The general consensus is that being in good shape was a great, great asset,” he said.

Word of Hollingsworth’s injuries prompted an outpouring of support for the deputy, his wife, Debbie, and their two children and family. After doctors released him from hospitalization he termed himself, “a walking miracle.”

“People in general have been good, very good, to us,” he said, expressing particular thanks to Pace and his other co-workers at the sheriff’s department. “Anything we’ve needed, they’ve done for us.”

Hollingsworth said his improvement seems to be continuing steadily.

“And, you know, it just gets better every day,” he said. “That’s the way to look at it, and that’s the way it is. It just gets better every day.”

Hollingsworth was standing outside his patrol sedan Feb. 9 directing funeral traffic into Green Acres Memorial Park on U.S. 80 just west of Beechwood. He was hit by a Buick sedan that then ran off the road and stopped in a ditch.

Ronald Vaughn, 24, 1402 Maulding Drive, was taken from the scene to River Region Medical Center, then released to authorities as the accused driver.

In May at a hearing to revoke his probation from a previous conviction, Vaughn admitted he was driving under the influence of drugs when Hollingsworth was struck. He was ordered held in jail awaiting trial on a charge of aggravated DUI, which carries a possible prison sentence of up to 25 years. A trial has been scheduled for December.