CHARLOTTE, NC. -- Larry Sprinkle is a legend in the Charlotte community. And now he can add miracle to that reputation.
A little more than three months ago, he was involved in a devastating car accident that shattered his body.
NBC Charlotte friend and colleague Colleen Odegaard visited Larry at a rehabilitation center and gave him a hug that thousands of people in this community would like to give him.
Sprinkle looks good. In fact, he looks incredible, especially when you consider he has spent most of the past three months in a wheelchair after his body was broken from a car accident that nearly took his life.
“I remember sitting in my wheelchair and watching people walk and just looking fascinated thinking I hope I can do that one day. I hope I can stand up and walk,” Sprinkle said.
Thanks to Sprinkle’s rigorous physical therapy sessions, he can.
For six weeks Larry lived at Carolinas Rehabilitation Center. He's now at home, but comes back for rehab sessions two to three times a week.
“For me personally, I'm not walking the way I want to, but then I come to physical therapy and they tell me you're moving and I say I'm shuffling along.”
Sprinkle graduated from the wheelchair to getting by with a walker and now a cane.
“A git stick,” he says with a smile.
His doctors and therapists think he'll ditch the cane soon. They are astounded by his progress.
The work ethic the coworkers are used to seeing in Sprinkle at the TV station, he brings that to his therapy sessions too.
“It's challenging,” Sprinkle admits. “Sometimes I do okay. Sometimes so-so. But every bit of this physical therapy is going to get me back to work a lot faster.”
Sprinkle has every intention of coming back to work, but he’s not sure when that will be.
In addition to the physical challenges he's faced, Sprinkle has struggled with getting behind the wheel again.
“When I actually went out on a secondary road in the neighborhood, it was a little frightening. But I have, every single day for the past several weeks, been driving and getting more comfortable with that,” Sprinkle said. “I mean whoever would've thought you'd be uncomfortable driving, but when you've had something that dramatic happen, it is going to affect you and they told me it would.”
What they didn't tell him is that rehab would involve literally every part of his body.
“I am more glute aware than I've ever been in my entire life. There are some exercises you can do for your glutes that I can't show you on camera. We'd be censored. I'm working out right now,” he says in his typical Sprinkle humor.
He does say he's been driving more and more each day and he's growing more comfortable with it.
For this one time admitted workaholic, the accident has changed his perspective.
"I'm more concerned about the way life should be lived and how you need to slow down, how you can't do everything, that you can only do so much and that you need to take time to not only work but have some free time and time to yourself, family and friends," Sprinkle said. "And that's the way my life is going to have to be. I can't go 150 miles an hour. I did that too long. I just need to slow down."
Sprinkle, who is fiercely private and independent, also now knows that it's okay to ask for help.
"I need to have other people help me. My family. My wife. My daughter. My brother who lives here in Charlotte. If it weren't for them, you and I wouldn't be talking," Sprinkle said. "They saved my life and did so much for me."
Sprinkle also said everyone in the community has done so much for him. He appreciates the prayers and cards. He's so grateful for the love and support he's received from this community he holds so dear.
If you'd like to leave a message for Larry, click here to visit our Facebook page or you can mail a card to the WCNC studio:
NBC Charlotte
c/o Larry Sprinkle
1001 Wood Ridge Center Drive
Charlotte, NC 28217