“The Uber took a left and then headed down this road and I remember looking over, and thinking, oh my God, I think those cars are going to hit us,” Rina says. “That’s when I heard the crash, then I woke up to air bags above us and my husband laying face up on my lap, that's when I knew something was seriously wrong.”
The Hernandez’s were both taken to Harris Health Ben Taub Hospital. Rina sustained minor injuries, but Edison had to be put into a medically induced coma due to brain swelling. He was diagnosed with left parietal-temporal lobe damage—typically resulting in severe language, memory and spatial processing deficits. He also suffered from aphasia, a language disorder affecting the ability to produce or understand words. As a result, Edison is not able to speak, and according to Rina, doctors say it’s unknown when and if he will ever do so.
“Nothing is really clear. He can start talking tomorrow, next week, or five years from now,” she explains. “We just have to pray and hope that later on with therapy he’ll get that back.”
Edison had to have a craniectomy— doctors had to remove the left part of his skull due to the pressure and swelling so he had to wear a helmet for five months until receiving a cranioplasty—repairing the skull with plastic or metal objects—in October 2025.
“Once they put the skull back, there was a light in his eyes,” Rina says, smiling. “Ever since then, he's been progressing.”
Edison also has apraxia, a neurological motor planning disorder where the brain struggles to sequence movements for voluntary actions, despite muscles functioning properly. However, with physical therapy, Edison slowly began walking again and today Rina says he’s even kicking the soccer ball around.
Aside from a missing tooth, miraculously, Edison didn’t sustain any physical injuries like broken bones.
“I constantly remind him, ‘you're blessed, you're here, you're walking, you have your hands, your legs, everything,’” Rina says.
She goes on to say that the staff at Ben Taub Hospital were paramount in Edison’s recovery.
“The nurses were truly amazing,” she says. “So was Michael Segal, [patient experience trauma support specialist]. His story and his visits gave us a lot of hope.”
Edison is still working with physical therapists and getting stronger by the day, with hopes of speaking soon. In the meantime, the Hernandez’s continue to lean on faith, friends and family.