About 11 months ago, Riley Lambert, a graduate of Midway High School, was 24 years old and working at his first job in Dallas. He had recently graduated with a degree in finance from UT Tyler. He was an all-conference center fielder for the Patriots baseball team. On March 20, 2024, Lambert’s life changed forever. He and a client played a round of golf and then spent about five hours at the clubhouse, eating and drinking. Lambert, well over the legal limit after, he estimates, six cocktails, hit a tree going about 70 mph in his Ram pickup. He broke three vertebrae and has no feeling in his body below his chest. He’s now living with his parents, Nikki and Alan Rhea; siblings, Myles, 16, and Collins, 10; and Bailey, an Irish Wheaten Terrier, in the family home in McGregor, where Nikki is his primary caregiver.
How are your lives different than they were previous to March 20?
Riley: Physically, in every way possible. There’s some very apparent and obvious physical changes, but I feel like a totally different person. I’m just not the same. I don’t approach life the same way anymore. It’s very apparent that my time here is temporary and I’m more focused on my walk with Christ and eternity and how I can spread the good news. What I mainly know is my purpose now. I’m very grateful. I haven’t uncovered how to do that, and by no means have I figured out how to live that out. I’m just keeping my heart and eyes and brain open and trusting in God that this is all for a reason.
Nikki: On March 20, at 10:32 p.m. when I got that phone call, my life changed forever, and it will never be the same. I will never be the same mom. I will never be the same Nikki. I will never be the same wife. I will never be the same friend. I still think I’m in fight mode and we’re approaching 11 months post-injury. Physically, it’s challenging. It is a challenge for him to live every day, and it’s a challenge for me to make sure he lives. He’s 100% reliant on us and Mom is the one to help with those especially hard things.
How has your family been impacted?
Nikki: We have three kids. Riley’s the oldest; Myles is 16, he’s a junior at Midway; and Collins is 10, she’s in fifth grade. There was a long time where their lives were all about traveling to watch Riley play baseball. So, their lives have changed, too, as you can imagine. They are extremely helpful. They are willing to help anytime, and they’re the greatest help. I mean, to have a 10-year-old come and help you get dressed and brush your teeth, it’s sweet. It’s hard for him to accept that, ‘Oh, my 10-year-old sister’s helping me,’ or, you know, ‘My brother’s helping me do this and that.’
And, my time’s taken away from them. You know, [Riley and I] were gone for 70 days. It’s taken me away from them quite a bit. And I remember saying this in the ICU at some point, because my family and friends were asking, ‘What can we do for you?’ And I just remember saying, ‘I need you guys to help me with the other two. Just love them, encourage them, golf’ — Myles is a golfer. So I’m just like, ‘If I know that you’re helping push them and their lives don’t have to stop or stall because his has, that’s what I’m asking for you to do.’
Where do you see yourselves going from here?
Nikki: I want to keep working and just keep moving forward, but I’d say it’s hard to find rest, and I’m not talking about sleep, but just rest. I’m definitely still in the fight zone for all of us: his life, my kids’ lives, our financial future, this home. Where do we go next to get him better? So that’s where it’s hard for me, too.
I do say ‘When you walk again’ — those are my words — ‘When you walk again.’
But before that, my goal for him is to help him just live independently as much as he can. Because it burdens him so much that he has to depend on us. I hear it and I recognize it; he hates to ask us to have to do everything, and, sometimes, probably still chooses not to ask for something when he needs it. So getting him back to independent living and taking care of himself as much as he can is a goal for me.
Riley: One place I want to go to where there’s all kinds of people like me is the Adaptive Training Foundation in Dallas. They have a huge 20,000-square-foot space for working out, and everybody in there that’s working out is spinal cord injury, an amputee or paraplegic or quadriplegic. That’s my next step, is to get to the ATF so that I can be surrounded by community and compete again. I really want to compete at something — I miss that so much.
I just recorded an episode of my podcast with a spinal cord injury patient two days ago. He’s six years out from his injury. I connected with him through Instagram. My podcast is Keep Stacking. It’s just beginning. It’s through the Rogue Media Network, they make it super easy. My mom and I did the first one, my best friend, Carson Cox and I did the second one, then me and the other spinal cord patient I mentioned did the third one.
The guests I invite on are super strong and have stuff to share. I already shared my story, but I want to also take other people’s experiences and just make it be known that everybody suffers in their own way. I’m not the only suffering out here. ‘What’re your experiences, and how do you overcome them?’ I think that’s where I want the podcast to go.
What message would you like to get out of what happened and everything that has followed?
Nikki: We’re sharing this to really help, it could help somebody else. If this story can help someone, that’s the purpose. It’s not for pity or sympathy, definitely not pity. It’s not to hear all my, you know, complaints, but definitely when people ask, I really don’t sugarcoat anything.
Riley: That communication, especially transparency with the people that you love, is so important. At times I would try to hide my pain and I wouldn’t ask for help, because I was trying to be tough and all that. But you need to speak to somebody if you’re going through something that hard — like my injury, like losing a loved one, like whatever suffering you’re going through — it is extremely important to lean on others.
Communication is key. And I really want people to know that if you are hurting and considering suicide, or if you don’t want to be anymore, there is someone that definitely wants you here and needs you here and you’re on this earth for a reason. Your life is a gift.
Keep stacking was our philosophy in baseball. Keep stacking good at bats to score more runs. Keep stacking good attitudes to be more positive in the dugout. But you can stack all kinds of things. The thing I have the most control of now is my behavior, and specifically what I say and how I react to certain things. I just try to remain positive because that’s what I have control over. I have no control of anything below my neck, but I have control of my mouth, so I’m stacking good attitudes.
If you or someone you know needs support, please reach out to the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988.
