WACO, Texas (KWTX/Gray News) – A student-athlete overcame a devasting injury and emerged with a superhuman gift for numbers.
Blake Hyland, 25, can make mental calculations almost instantly. He can do complex calculations that would leave the average person scratching his head but his amazing math skills are not the most impressive thing about him.
Blake Hyland has not always had this superhuman gift for numbers. When he was 14 years old, he was just a regular kid, a good student and a gifted athlete until a tragic accident at a track meet one day.
“I was looking around and I didn’t see Blake. All of the sudden there was a big commotion over in the foam pit where, when he vaulted and landed on the side of the pit on exposed concrete. He immediately suffered massive strokes and I rushed out there and the paramedics came,” his father Pat Hyland said.
Pat Hyland said he called his wife, Cindy Hyland, and told her that their son “had an accident.”
“She said, ‘You’re kidding. This is no joke,’” Pat Hyland said.
Blake Hyland was life-flighted to Cooks Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, and spent seven weeks in a coma.
Cindy Hyland said things did not look good for her son.
“They said he will probably be in a nursing home for the rest of his life,” she said, “Our whole world changed that night.”
Blake Hyland’s brain began to change, too.
“I had a clock on the dresser at the hospital. All of a sudden, he started concentrating on the clock and started counting everything, the ceiling tiles in the room, huge numbers, things. We got him a watch for his birthday while he was in there and we had to take it off during therapy because all he was concerned about was the time,” Cindy Hyland said.
After 16 months of intensive therapy, Blake beat the odds and walked out of that hospital. He left with more than scars. He left with a gift.
As Blake Hyland continued to heal, so did his almost superhuman connection with numbers and time.
“He‘d wake up and go, ‘Dad, it‘s 8:21 in Afghanistan ‘ or ’It’s 30 past whatever.’ He just started doing all these numbers, and when a nurse or therapist would come in and mention something about math, Blake would start spitting out all this information quickly. Not just quickly, accurately,” Pat Hyland said.
His recovery defied all odds and after a year and a half of hard work, he did something doctors never thought he would do. He went right back to high school. He graduated on time and went on to Texas Tech where he graduated magnum cum laude.
Now, 10 years after his accident, Blake Hyland works at Bitty and Beau’s Coffee Shop in Waco, Texas. The shop is known for hiring those with disabilities. He says he loves his job.
“I like to interact with people. I sing songs there. I do math and card tricks and more. I like making people happy,” he said.
Blake Hyland has written a book and has a popular TikTok account where he tells a joke of the day.
His parents are amazed at his ability to connect with people and make them smile.
“I see it all the time. People who make comments to me who say, ‘I met Blake. He’s fun to be around. He loves life. Blake is already the man I want to be someday,’” Cindy Hyland said.
She says when people meet him, “they walk away with joy, happiness.”
Blake Hyland said he thinks that numbers make so much sense to him because they never change. “
“Numbers never change. English changes every day. History changes every day. Science changes. Numbers always stay the same,” he said.
Copyright 2024 KWTX via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.