His words echoed through the auditorium and suddenly everything seemed to go in slow motion. His foot fumbled and he felt himself lose all balance and begin to fall backwards as his vision blurred out the surrounding scenery. There was a loud crash, and all at once, everything went black.

Senior Jacob Hopfer experienced a concussion last year while practicing for the Regional UIL Theatre One-Act Play performance of ‘Fire in the Hole.’ He went to the hospital and missed a week of school as a result of the occurrence. It was during one of the final scenes when Hopfer tripped over himself and had a whiplash effect from the rebound off the stage floor.

“When I got back up, [Mr. Michael] Abrams just thought it was a phenomenal acting moment,” Hopfer said. “But then he realized what happened, and I was in a ton of pain. That scene just flashed before my eyes over and over in my head while I threw up in a trash can.”

The cast and crew of the show let him sit in a prop wheelchair and rolled him down to the theatre office. There, they gave him ice packs and called down an athletic trainer to check if he had a concussion.

“[The trainer] asked me what I had done that spring break,” Hopfer said. “I had gone to New York, but I completely forgot about it when she asked. I really had to think about things that I should’ve known easily. Everything seemed to just be slowing down.”

Afterwards, Hopfer said his mother brought him to the hospital where he had to get a CAT scan. The scan showed no internal bleeding or injuries, but Hopfer was told he would have migraine headaches for the next few days.

“My mom was scared for her life that I was going to forget everything,” Hopfer said. “My friends and Abrams were scared that I wasn’t going to be able to come back and do the show since it was right before Regionals. Everyone relaxed after I got out of the hospital, but I was afraid of having actual damage to my brain.”

While he missed school, he spent most of his time sleeping and watching TV to keep himself preoccupied. The main side effects he remembered dealing with were nausea when he did anything too fast and difficulty keeping focus on specific things.

“The whole thing was an accident,” Hopfer said. “During the entire show, Homero [Perez Franco] and I had been hitting each other constantly because of the fall. I don’t hold a grudge against him. In all honesty, it made us better friends.”

After getting back to school, Hopfer said it was hard to pay attention, and homework became a much more tedious task for the first few weeks. However, he said it did not affect his theatre performance, because he already knew the lines to the show by heart.

“It didn’t really affect my participation in theatre in a negative way,” Hopfer said. “It actually made me wanna do more. After having the concussion, I realized I needed to step up and do more for the show since I was then a week behind everyone.”

Hopfer still performed at Regionals and the show ended up advancing to State, where it earned third place. He said the concussion opened his eyes to how much people cared for him and changed his attitude toward a lot of people that he became more appreciative of.

“Beforehand, I thought I was kind of a nobody, like just another actor,” Hopfer said. “But then as soon as I got hurt, so many people were asking ‘Are you okay? Is there anything we can do?’ Even the directors were asking if they could do anything for me, and it really showed that they care about their students and that people cared about me.”