It was sometime early in 2021 when Jon Lyon rolled his IV pole down the ICU hallway in an Athens, Georgia, hospital and listened to the sounds of people dying and thought to himself, “If I get out of here, I’ve got to help other people.”
At 50, Lyon began his first semester in Southwestern Community College’s nursing program on Aug. 17, and thanks to the college’s Health Science Scholars Program, Harris Regional Hospital will be paying for his schooling in exchange for Lyon’s commitment to a two-year contract after graduation.
Lyon is ready for this new chapter in his life, and receiving this scholarship has been a huge win for him and his family that just five years ago was preparing for his funeral. Lyon contracted a severe case of COVID-19 in early 2021. The illness progressed rapidly, and by the time he’d made it to the emergency room, he was in active kidney failure.
One of the last things Lyon remembers before going into a medically induced coma was his doctor asking him if his will was in order.
In the early days, Lyon’s doctors told his family his chances of surviving were low. Friends organized and raised $20,000 in a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for his funeral expenses.
About a month later, he woke up in a different hospital, paralyzed. Within that period, he’d flatlined. He had a heart attack from the stress of his lungs not working properly and was shocked back to life. He spent time in the cardiac ward on an artificial lung. As Lyon regained consciousness in his hospital bed, he gazed up at everyone around him, and it looked like they were all wearing fallout suits.
It was terrifying.
He was 100% reliant on every single person in the room. His team of providers had to help him learn how to breathe, walk, eat, drink, talk — everything — again.
While Lyon was in the ICU, he said two staff members retired. Most rooms in the unit had two or three patients in them at the time, and most of those patients didn’t make it. The hospital desperately needed nurses. The desire to be one of the people helping — instead of the one being helped — gave Lyon something to look forward to when his future was uncertain.
He was one of the lucky ones.
According to a National Institute of Health study during the early days of the pandemic, 61% of patients who’d undergone mechanical ventilation died within 28 days of intubation. He survived, but that survival didn’t come without its scars.
Today, Lyon walks with a slight limp — losing 60 pounds of muscle in the hospital exacerbated an old knee problem. There’s a round, red scar on his neck from where doctors sliced it open to perform a surgical tracheostomy.
Then there are the scars you can’t see.
“When I was in a coma, my brain was very active, and the dreams — my wife and son were missing — so, when I became conscious, all I wanted was to give back to my wife and son,” Lyon said. “[Now] it’s been trying to figure out: I’m alive. I’m here. I’ve been given a gift. A lot of people did not survive for whatever reason. I’m here. How do I make the best of it? How do I give back? How do I help other people face other things?”
Lyon has undergone years of treatment for PTSD from the ketamine-induced nightmares he had while in a coma. He experienced depression and anxiety and survived withdrawal syndrome from the benzodiazepines he was given while hospitalized. It’s those experiences, however, that Lyon’s wife, Holly, said will make him an amazing nurse. She found out after he woke up that her husband could subconsciously understand what was happening in the room around him. He knew if someone near him died. He could tell when someone came in to clean the room. He could tell if nurses were being attentive.
“He has a strong desire to be able to help people in that way because he knows what it’s like to be completely incapacitated and not even be able to get up and go to the bathroom on your own,” she said.
On the day of his interview with The Smoky Mountain News, Lyon wore a hat that read, “Hard Work Pays Off.” It’s his gym hat. Lyon has been a personal trainer for many years, and it’s a mantra he says to himself and his clients when they’re at their limit and need that extra motivation to push harder.
His hard work is starting to pay off. In June, Lyon, along with 13 other SCC students in the health sciences division, were recognized as the inaugural class of the Health Science Scholars Program. Membership into the program grants the scholar free tuition in exchange for a commitment to a two-year contract at one of four local hospitals (Harris Regional, Angel Medical, Cherokee Indian or Sylva Valley Health and Rehab) after graduation.
Because he lives across the border in Dillard, Georgia, Lyon did not qualify for any financial aid, and he had no plan for how to pay for the nursing program. He chose SCC because he works in Franklin and the nursing program at SCC felt right. Lyon thought it might take him five to six years to finish the two-year degree, paying piecemeal and continuing to work full time on top of his studies. When one of his advisors came to him with this opportunity, he thought it might be too good to be true.
Now, Lyon said knowing his degree is paid for means everything to him and his family. And the fact that he’s committed to staying close to the community that helped him so much when he’d experienced a life-altering medical event has given him all the more reason to celebrate.
“I told [Harris Regional Hospital], ‘If you guys are willing to pay for my school, I will show up and be a very happy, motivated employee for two years,” Lyon said. “That seems like a very fair trade-off if you ask me.”
There had been a partnership like the Health Science Scholars Program between SCC and Harris Regional and Swain Community hospitals for a while, said Tim Dean, dean of the SCC health sciences division. But when Dean came to the school a little over a year ago, he made it his mission to expand it.
Dean said that as the program existed before his arrival, there was really no connection between the student and the hospital except for the agreement that the hospital was going to pay for their schooling. Dean has since expanded it to include an application and interview process with hospital representatives and a dinner to celebrate the achievement with students, their families and the hospitals where they’ve just been promised jobs.
Dean also expanded the program from including just nursing students to all 17 career fields for which the college’s health sciences division provides training, including sonography, respiratory therapy, surgical technology, physical therapy assistants, occupational therapy assistants and more. Going forward, Dean said he plans to do more events with the scholars and hospitals to help deepen those connections between the two.
Since the celebratory dinner in June, Dean said he’d already been contacted by other facilities that wanted in on the program. He expects more employers to join the program by next year.
The Power of Community Colleges
Dean, who now has six degrees, is a strong believer in the mission of community colleges. He changed the direction of his life when he enrolled in a respirator therapy program at Alvin Community College in Texas at age 26.
He’d dropped out of a traditional four-year university at 20. He’d earned an associate’s degree in radio broadcasting and communications, but by the time he was 26, with a wife and kids, he realized he needed to get serious about finding a career to support his family. At the time, he just needed a good job — any good job. By 28, he’d earned another associate’s degree and was a respiratory therapist at Texas Children’s Hospital, where he quickly moved through the ranks.
Since then, he’s earned another associate’s degrees, a bachelor’s, a master’s and a doctorate and continued his work as a health care professional and educator.
None of that would have been possible without his local community college, and now, he’s setting big goals for the health science programs at SCC to change as many students’ lives as he can by lowering barriers to entry into the health care field where workers are needed and there are many opportunities for growth.
“We are grateful to Dr. Tim Dean for championing the healthcare scholarship initiative,” said SCC President Don Tomas. “Healthcare scholarships remove financial barriers for our students, allowing them to pursue rigorous clinical training without the burden of debt. By covering essential tuition and fees, these awards give future nurses, paramedics and health professionals the freedom to focus on their studies and launch rewarding careers right here in Western North Carolina. Ultimately, this support transforms lives by turning academic passion into immediate, local impact for both our students and the mountain communities they serve.”
As a respiratory therapist, Dean said he saw the impact of his work on his patients every day. Over the years, he’s realized that impact has multiplied, almost exponentially, by training students to go out and help the people in their communities.
He remembers walking into Texas Children’s Hospital one day after teaching at a local community college for a few years and joking that he’d single-handedly staffed the place. He was sort of kidding, but when he looked at the room, he noticed that most of the personnel in there had been his students at one point or another.
“I would say my ‘why’ has changed over the years,” Dean said. “How it first started was very much I need a job that pays good money and a career, and now it’s turned into how can I can I help? How can I be of service?”
This first year of the Health Science Scholars Program, Dean said 30 students applied, 13 of which were offered a scholarship and two-year contract after their schooling. In the future, he wants to see 50, 60, 80, 100 students apply for the program.
What’s more is that by attaching the scholarship to a promise to work for a local medical provider for two years after graduation, hospitals have a guaranteed pipeline to their workforce, and patients can get a more personalized quality of care from someone who is already a part of their community.
Ashley Hindman, CEO of Harris Regional and Swain Community hospitals, said he could not be more thrilled with the students who’ve committed to working at Harris Regional within the Health Science Scholars Program.
“Our mission as an organization is making communities healthier, and this really gives us an opportunity to achieve that mission by providing health care as close to home as possible,” Hindman said. “And what better place to find staff that are committed to the region than where right here where they’re from?”
Students like Lyon understand the value of the reciprocity that comes from forming deep roots in a community. One of the goals of the Health Science Scholars Program is to strengthen those roots for more students who choose SCC.
SCC nursing student Lillian Rhoads also has deep roots in the area, but until recently she was eager to leave her hometown. She’s a nursing student in the Health Science Scholars Program, born and raised in Jackson County. After graduating from Smoky Mountain High School in 2023, she left home for Bristol, Tennessee, to begin her freshman year at King University as a member of the women’s soccer team. As student athlete and honors student, she’d always had big dreams. Part of those dreams, she thought, meant going off to get a degree from a traditional four-year university.
Those dreams were put on hold, however, when she started having heart problems.
Her freshman year, Rhoads underwent two heart procedures and had to move back home to be close to her family for care. After her procedures, she found out she would no longer be able to play soccer at the competitive level again, and she suddenly had to rethink everything.
“I kind of always had that little voice in the back of my brain being like, ‘You have something to prove,’” Rhoads said. “Like, I have to prove everybody wrong, and so, having that kind of pressure on myself, knowing I was coming back home after I was supposed to go play soccer for four years, essentially in my brain, I failed to do that.”
It almost felt like her life was shrinking at a time when most young adults feel it rapidly expanding.
When she enrolled at SCC, she thought it would be nice to save money, but she didn’t expect it to be as fun or rigorous as a four-year institution. It was purely a practical decision, but now that Rhoads is a year into her program, she says SCC has exceeded her expectations and provided her an incredible opportunity. Being close to family allowed her to physically and mentally heal from her heart problems, and having small class sizes has meant professors are willing to go out of their way to help Rhoads fully understand the coursework.
She’s also been able to expand her identity outside of just “soccer player” into a more multifaceted individual. Slowly, Rhoads is changing her stance on staying local.
“My mom is from Michigan, and my dad is from Virginia Beach, and she talked to me a lot about this through high school when I mentioned, ‘I just wanted to leave, I want to get out,’ that having roots is an OK thing,” Rhoads said. “I think I’ve really realized that it’s important to me, being near family. I’ve also realized that I do enjoy this area.”
Her first year in the nursing program, Rhoads worked two part-time jobs and was enrolled as a full-time student at SCC. She’s still planning to work now that she’s earned a scholarship, but the scholarship has added relief. She can take a day off if she needs to. She doesn’t have to worry so much about rent.
Like Lyon, Rhoads said her experience going through a traumatic medical event has motivated her to seek out a career in nursing. At times when she was sick, she said she received great care, but she also said she felt gaslit by doctors when she was first seeking a diagnosis after experiencing symptoms.
“I want to be a health care provider that provides compassion and a safe space where people feel comfortable,” Rhoads said.
After she graduates, Rhoads will work at Cherokee Indian Hospital. She said she’s excited to live on the Qualla Boundary and learn more about the community.
“Keeping folks here, knowing they’re going to work here for the next few years, we can train them correctly,” Dean said. “We can get them in the hospital. They’ll be able to do quality work, and hopefully, they stay after their contract’s up. That’s the goal, and that’s how we’re going to have to fix the rural health care problem. We’ve got to get the folks that are living, working and coming to school here to stay here to work. That’s the way we do it.”
A New Beginning
This isn’t Lyon’s first try at nursing school.
He’s been a care worker off and on his whole life, working as a lifeguard, EMT, physical trainer, physical education teacher and youth pastor. He first pursued a nursing degree some 25 years ago, but back then, schools offered little in the way of accommodations for students with learning disabilities. Lyon has severe dyslexia and couldn’t make it through all the memorization and spelling required for his anatomy and physiology classes.
With SCC, however, Lyon cannot speak highly enough of his professors and advisors who have been eager to help him find accommodations for learning the material in a way that’s conducive to how his brain works. Technology and advances in education following the Americans with Disabilities Act have also helped, he said. That, plus sheer determination, has made all the difference with nursing school this time around.
When he fell ill, Lyon was working in Trimont Christian Academy in Franklin and said people in the community he hardly even knew were willing to donate money to help his family pay for expenses. Making sure he repays their kindness in whatever way he can has fueled him to get here.
“It’s one of the reason’s I chose SCC,” Lyon said. “I could have gone down to North Georgia, but that wasn’t the community that was really praying for me and giving and reaching out, and shoot, I’ll do anything to help out my neighbors that were doing that for me. There’s not a big enough thank you. I cannot believe you guys were that kind to me and my family. I will show up to work. I will show up to class and study and do the best job I can, and that’s my way of saying thank you.”
It’s taken Lyon five years to get to this point. He had to learn to walk again, but he also had to take care of his mental health and know that he could handle the stressors of stepping back into a hospital again, into acute care settings like what experienced going through COVID. This time, he’s ready, and he knows he has the support to help him succeed.
“I’m excited,” Holly Lyon said. “I feel like he has direction and motivation. He’s always had motivation, but he hasn’t always had the direction … In the past five years, he’s been in survival mode. Now we’re moving into thriving mode.”
Lyon knows the next two years in SCC’s nursing program will be difficult, but there is one mantra that’s never failed him: hard work pays off.