Muhammad Diakhaby, better known to those who love him as ‘Moe,’ recently experienced a life-changing setback while in Seattle, Washington, for a job interview with Microsoft in mid-october.
“I was going through a crosswalk, a pedestrian crosswalk and I had my earphones in – I didn’t see anybody either way – all I remember is looking to my left, I just see headlights and I wake up in the ambulance,” said Diakhaby. “When I woke up, I couldn’t feel my legs or anything — that was just surreal.”
The former Three Rivers College Raider is now paralyzed from the waist down. He remains hospitalized in Seattle while his former teammates try to raise funds for a transition to a rehab facility.
Diakhaby, 26, was struck by a drunk driver and sustained traumatic injuries.
While Diakhaby grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, he spent 2016 and 2017 as a Raider while attending Three Rivers College.
He played a forward position for coach Gene Bess.
“Something that meant a lot to me in the community was coach — Gene called me and he prayed with me, he reached out to me and he prayed with me and that really meant a lot,” Diakhaby said.
Officers visited Diakhaby in the hospital a day or two after his horrific event.
“They told me that people ran to me, not to the driver, but they said the driver came out to check on me with everybody and they could smell alcohol on him,” Diakhaby said.
During the commotion, Diakhaby said bystanders were busy tending to him, “so nobody got his plates or anything. It was by a park, so there were no cameras or stores and on top of that, it was a four-way stop sign, so there were no lights or maybe one of the light (cameras) could have caught it.”
As anyone can imagine, having his independence, ability to walk, as well as his vision of the future so quickly and greatly altered was detrimental to Diakhaby’s mental state.
“For the first couple of weeks, I was ... in a deep, dark depression, really having dark thoughts, suicidal thoughts,” Diakhaby said. “All these different things would just run through my mind because going from being an athlete to not being able to do anything and having nurses — I can’t be independent. She’s having to do everything for me now, that was one of the hardest things. It was a tough pill to swallow, not having any independence.”
Something stranger happened when he was in that dark place, Diakhaby said.
“I was on YouTube, and I’m not super religious, but there was this animation that just popped up. I don’t even know why, but I clicked on it for some weird reason and it was the story of Job and I never heard of it, and it made me think I just need to fight through this and get my mind right,” said Diakhaby. “To not let these dark times get the best of me — feeling like God is putting me through trials. That’s kind of what got me over the edge. And I just started not feeling bad for myself and trying to do what I could.”
Diakhaby’s teammate created a GoFundMe so that he can eventually get into rehab.
“It is just so expensive and everything fell on me, which is crazy because I didn’t do anything but these medical bills are just ridiculous,” he said.
Diakhaby said he received some funding from a crime victims advocacy fund, the government and the hospital, “but that of course did not cover everything and then rehab, it doesn’t cover that.”
Diakhaby went on to say they are “very hopeful, but they’re not certain. They told me they have seen people miraculously get their feeling back. I’m starting to get some feeling back in my toes and my foot, so that’s a good sign.
“The toughest part is going to be rehab — to get back to some kind of normal state, I’m praying that it’s fully walking.”
Diakhaby still has a long road of recovery ahead of him, as well as growing medical debt, but despite his trials he has chosen to stay positive.
“It has brought me closer to God myself because being so down, you don’t have nobody to turn to. I just started praying every day and seeing little things happen that are kind of out of the norm even for medicine and things like that. I am just trusting in prayer because that’s all I have left,” Diakhaby said.
Anyone who would like to extend a helping hand can do so by visiting www.gofundme.com/f/zcjva-rehabilitation-and-medical-expenses.
Misty DeJournett - Daily American Republic