Allison Hudson remembers waking up Valentine’s Day morning, glancing down at her cell phone and seeing a text message from her son, Jake.
“It was about 8:30 and he sent me this really nice picture,” she recalled. “It was a shot overlooking the ocean down in Dana Point.”
It was exactly an hour later when Allison received a call on her cell from a number she had never seen before.
The voice on the other end of the line, however, was one she’ll never forget.
“The Sherriff’s department called me,” she said. “They told me to head down to Mission Hospital. Jake had been in an accident.”
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Jake Hudson, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound defensive end for Tesoro High, spent Valentine’s Day morning with three of his teammates in Dana Point, when the idea of hiking a nearby cliff was suggested.
“We just said, ‘Let’s go check out this cool spot where you can see a view of the ocean,’” Hudson explained.
Upon arriving at the top of the bluff, the group took in the picturesque view of the harbor.
Toeing the edge of the precipice, they all also got a glance at the steep drop a mere inch away.
“Weirdly enough, we all said if someone were to fall off this cliff, they’d for sure die,” Hudson added. “It was over 50 feet.”
Fortunately for the 18-year-old defensive star, he was wrong.
Moments after observing the potentially fatal drop, the ground beneath Hudson gave out, ultimately sending him sliding down a cliff full of rocks, knocking him unconscious.
“He fell so hard, it knocked him right out of his shoes,” Tesoro coach Matt Poston said. “The police said it’s unreal he didn’t die.”
When an ambulance arrived on the scene, it transported Hudson to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. He immediately underwent hip surgery after fracturing his back and pelvis, and a cast was put on his right wrist that was also fractured. Hudson also had 13 staples put in his head to close a wound.
“I was in shock really,” his mother said. “When I walked in, I wasn’t expecting Jake to be in the kind of shape he was in. He was all beat up. He had a neck brace on and was all bloody and torn up.”
For Allison and the rest of the Hudson family, seeing Jake in a hospital bed brought back some trying memories.
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When he was 4 years old, doctors discovered a glioma tumor on Jake’s optic nerve, the part of the body that transmits visual information from retina to the brain.
An optometrist concluded Jake was permanently blinded in his right eye because of it, and he was rushed to surgery to have the tumor removed.
“He had full-on brain surgery at 41/2 (years old),” Allison explained. “I was always amazed he could even play football after that.”
From Pop Warner to the beginning of his high school career, Jake showed a knack for the game despite only being able to see out of his left eye.
Nearly 14 years after spending extended periods of time in and out of hospitals, however, he was back recovering from the fall, a promising football career in jeopardy.
He would spend five days recuperating in the critical trauma wing and the pediatric intensive care unit, where both the bed and bath proved to be too small for the big man.
When he was released, Hudson left the hospital in a wheelchair he was suspposed to be confined to for at least 10 weeks.
He only needed it for six.
Because he was in prime shape for football, Hudson recovered in almost half the time doctors expected it to take.
With regular physical therapy session to help re-strengthen his right side – the side he fell on – he was back on campus, walking from classroom to classroom unassisted, and he was ready to get back on the football field.
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For the six weeks he was stuck rolling himself around in a wheel chair, Hudson’s primary focus was returning to the gridiron, strapping on the pads for one more season underneath the lights.
“Mentally it was tough because physically it was so hard to deal with,” Jake said.
When he first began to walk on his own, Hudson could not be on his feet for more than 30 minutes at a time. Any more than that upright, Jake’s right side would stiffen up, his muscles would become increasingly sore, leaving the defensive lineman in extreme pain.
“I remember at one point, I told Tristan (Kafentzis) I didn’t think I was going to be able to play this season,” he admitted. “One side of my body was still the same, but I was totally favoring the other.”
Poston – a first-year coach at Tesoro last season – kept a close eye on his starting defensive end and watched as he rehabbed through the pain.
Walking around campus turned into light jogging around the track. Jogging evolved into sprinting. And when football conditioning started in the summer, there was Hudson in cleats, shorts and a T-shirt, roughly four months removed from a nearly fatal fall.
“If any kid was going to be able to come back from that, it’s Jake,” Poston said. “He’s a hard-nosed kid and showed a ton of resiliency through it all.”
Not only did Hudson fight his way back into playing shape, he held onto his starting spot on the defensive line, which is part of one of the stingiest defenses in the county.
In a Week 2 game against Upland – the West Valley Division’s top-ranked team at the time – Hudson sniffed out a screen play, intercepted the pass and returned it for a score in the first half.
“That was so exciting to see,” Allison said. “I was so proud of him”
Hudson and his Tesoro teammates are on a six-game winning streak, and are ranked No. 6 in the county, tops of all public schools.
The success remains sweetest for Hudson.
“As soon as I woke up in the hospital, you realize it changes you,” he said. “You have a new appreciation for life.”
