Fathauer, a Sellersburg resident, has worked at Schad Law in New Albany as an attorney for about two years, but has worked there in general for almost seven years. He said he mainly works in personal injury but he also does work in estate planning, wills and trusts.

On Sept. 18, 2015, at age 17, he was hit by a car while longboarding near his house in his hometown of Columbus [Indiana]. . . .

After coming out of the coma, Fathauer said he had to relearn certain things, including how to “fall in love again” with his fiancé, Chelsea, who he proposed to a month before the accident.

“I had to kind of find myself again,” he said.

Since his freshman year of high school, Fathauer had developed a strong interest in Christianity and theology, and was determined to become a pastor. Before the accident, Fathauer was conducting presentations at his high school on epistemological explanations. . . .

Fathauer then went through a “miraculous” physical recovery and was able to discharge from physical therapy six months ahead of schedule.

Once he was able to reconstruct himself after the accident, Fathauer and Chelsea moved into an apartment on campus at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville in early 2016.

Chelsea then suggested to Fathauer to find a personal injury lawyer . . . .

He said there were two main reasons why he wanted to work in law — helping others who had gone through injuries like himself and recovering from his own injury.

Fathauer said his doctors told him from the beginning that he needed to put his efforts into work that requires “higher level thinking.” He figured that if he could pass the LSAT, then that would demonstrate his recovery from the injury. He asked Chelsea what she thought, and she encouraged him to pursue it.

“She’s incredible. Very, very incredible,” he said about Chelsea. . . .

“There were many times where I just didn’t want to keep working on it. … I had to go to the library and just study away. I was trying to figure it out,” he said.

After passing the Law School Admission Test, he got into Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington. . . .

During a visit to see Fathauer’s newborn, he said Schad asked him what he wanted to do once he finished school, and he suggested that he could maybe work at his firm. He agreed, and they shook hands.

Fathauer was able to graduate from law school with four children younger than three and is licensed to practice law in Indiana and Kentucky.

Even with successes, Fathauer said he does struggle with some of the ramifications of the accident in a non-physical form. He said that he had struggled with depression and suicidal ideation from 2019 to February 2023.

“I’d say 60% to 70% of the time was pretty dark,” he said.

He said now, thanks to family, work providing stability and utilizing some medication, this has been much less of a challenge.

Fathauer said that the accident has made him into a more well-rounded person. He said before he was an “eternal optimist,” but the accident put him into an “opposite universe” . . . .

He said he doesn’t plan on working at any other firm, and loves working with clients. . . . He’s currently working on a book about the “ontological question of man” combined with his own personal experiences.

“Ultimately, life comes down to the subjective,” he said.

Full article and original Source: News & Tribune, Written by Andrew Harp. More photographs available from original source.