A Medina Valley ISD student returns to the San Antonio Rodeo after a debilitating car accident.

SAN ANTONIO. Among all the sports, music, and entertainment at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, the focus is on animal husbandry and education. And for one ISD student in Medina Valley, the opportunity to show off his pig was the end of a long journey.

With a pink ribbon in hand, Garrett Achtl led his pig around the show pen on Saturday at the stock show and rodeo in San Antonio. The pig in fourth place was a win for the 16-year-old.

“You just have to be on the other side of the judge so they can see him,” Garrett said. .”

A top six finish in her class means he can put her pig up for sale, but the real win was that she was able to show her pig at all.

In August, Garrett and his girlfriend were involved in a car accident near Fredericksburg.

“Especially in those first few days, we just didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Garetta’s mom, Ashley Achtl.

Ashley said the couple were airlifted to University Hospital in San Antonio. Garrett’s lungs collapsed, so he was put on a ventilator and doctors treated him for internal injuries as well as several broken bones, including a broken ankle.

The incident left both teenagers in wheelchairs, but Ashley said that their biggest concern was Garrett, that they could damage their brains.

“I believe there were three different cerebral hemorrhages,” she said. “One was worse than the other two. So that was our biggest problem at the time.”

Ashley said that Garrett received a lot of support from Linder’s Show Pigs, which held an event where Garrett and their girlfriend were heading when they had an accident.

“The stock show community is a very tight-knit group,” she said. “They had a sale and pretty much everything stopped that night as soon as they found out the kids were in an accident.”

Ashley said that thanks to physical therapy and community support, Garrett recovered faster than doctors expected.

His quick recovery allowed him to show off his pig on Saturday at the San Antonio stock show and rodeo, where Ashley said he actually looked better than he did last year.

before the accident, he, you know, he had a pig, we thought it was really good, and he didn’t post, and we didn’t make a sale last year,” she said. Antonio and especially sells that it is considered a pretty good day” .

But for her, the real victory is to see her son doing what he loves again.

“We’re just really grateful to Garrett that he’s back and feeling as good as he is now,” she said.