JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville couple facing mounting medical bills is asking for the community’s help to bring their paralyzed son home after a gun violence incident in Memphis, Tennessee.
Jameion Washington, 18, was recently transferred from the trauma ICU at Regional One Hospital in Memphis to the ICU stepdown.
Washington, who was 17 years old at the time, was shot in early February while he was living with his grandmother in Tennessee. Police said Washington’s cousin, identified as Devontae Watson-Matthew, 20, shot the teen in his back multiple times while standing over him.
The injuries severed Washington’s spine and left him permanently paralyzed. Doctors classify him as an incomplete quadriplegic, meaning he has little sensation in his body but is not able to move his arms and legs.
What led to the shooting remains unclear because Washington is unable to talk, and it’s unclear if Watson-Matthew is cooperating with investigators.
“Everything in me just dropped at that moment,” Washington’s father, James Washington, said about the gut-wrenching call he received about his son being in critical condition.
Washington moved from Jacksonville to Memphis in 2021 to stay with his grandmother. He attended Twin Lakes Academy Middle School, but his parents said he missed his friends back in Memphis and asked to attend high school there so they could all graduate together.
“We couldn’t believe it. My husband immediately started packing to leave,” said Jameion’s mother, Tahitta Washington.
Washington’s father has been by his son’s side in the ICU while his wife remains in Jacksonville, only taking occasional trips to see her son.
She described the moment she first saw her son in the hospital.
“It was hard,” Washington’s mother said. “It was hard to see him like that. He was a vibrant 17-year-old. He was going to school and was getting ready to graduate, and now all of a sudden, he can’t do anything from the neck down,” Tahitta Washington, Jameion’s mother, said.
James Washington said he lost his job as a truck driver, sticking by his son’s side.
Despite his wife still working while in Jacksonville, he said they have gone through their savings and have run up their credit cards, trying to pay mounting hospital bills while also trying to keep their home.
The couple wants to bring their son back to Jacksonville to a medical facility closer to home. They started a GoFundMe account with the hope that enough people would understand what they are going through and donate to their cause.
“My son needs more than I can provide, and I don’t know how to give it to him. All I know is to reach out and try and ask and plead to the mercy of everyone to try and help us out because I don’t know where else to go,” James Washington said.
“It’s been a life-altering change for us,” his wife said.
The following is a list of the financial obligations the couple is faces:
- Medic transportation home to Florida
- 24-hour care for nurses and aids (beyond what insurance pays for)
- Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy
- Percussion Vest for pulmonary airway clearance, diaphragm injury
- Pulmonary Bed
- Generator for continuous electricity for the Ventilator
- Power Lift Chair
- Stairway Chair Lift
- Electric Hoyer Lift
- Conversion wheelchair Van
