CHESTERFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — A 20-year-old Marine from Chesterfield Township received the surprise of a lifetime from the Detroit Lions.
The 20-year-old has spent the last year in rehabilitation after an injury at Marine boot camp paralyzed him. Just as he was nearing the end of his recovery journey, Aidan Hutchinson stopped by his house with quite the surprise.
Having your hero, Hutchinson, walk into your kitchen doesn’t happen to everyone.
“That was probably the craziest thing that’s ever happened in my life,” says Jacob Rinehart.
Related Video: Rinehart talks about the day he was injured in boot camp
The moment that it happened to Rinehart would change his life forever, and it all started back at Marine boot camp in South Carolina in October of 2023.
“I just keep telling myself, ‘I just can’t get hurt’,” he says. “We were training as if someone got shot, and you had to drag them out of combat. So, I had someone on my neck and he was grabbing my neck so tight, it caused swelling in my spinal cord, they call it extreme edema.”
At the hospital, Jacob was told that life as he knew it was over. He was paralyzed from the neck down and was told he would never walk again.
“I couldn’t eat my own food, I couldn’t sit up, everything hurt,” he says.
A Marine at heart, Jacob tells me that he refused to stay down. He began trying to push himself to make progress in small ways, like being able to get out of bed and into a wheelchair.
His dream? To one day walk onto Ford Field.
“I love the Lions,” he says. “It feels like a family – almost.”
After months of work, physical therapists at DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan watched as, remarkably, Jacob began to walk again.
His perseverance led to the moment Aidan Hutchinson, currently recovering from a broken tibia and fibula, walked into his Chesterfield Township kitchen — all caught on video.
Related Video: Watch the meeting of Hutchinson and Rinehar
Hutchinson: "I got a surprise for you guys. You guys are going to the Thanksgiving game; we got a few tickets for you guys."
Jacob: "Bro, what?"
Hutchinson: "This is an incredible opportunity for me to be able to surprise this family with tickets to the Thanksgiving game, and it’s all because of their son that persevered through an incredible amount of adversity."
Amon-Ra St. Brown even joined over Facetime.
And on Thanksgiving Day, Jacob lived his dream. He walked onto Ford Field, greeting the Detroit Lions, and oh yeah, while he was there, the Ford family gifted him tickets to the Super Bowl.
“I never wanted anything,” Jacob says. "I really just wake up and try to do the right thing.”
As far as what’s next for Jacob, he says he hopes to attend University of Michigan for his MBA to go into global supply chain management.
