Even if you’ve never met him, chances are you know at least a little bit about Andrew Winfrey. Throughout 2012, it was hard to go any distance in Cullman without spotting a “Pray for Andrew” sign or window sticker, an entreaty from Winfrey’s family and friends to remember him as the Cullman High School student lay in a coma following a traumatic February car accident that left him with lifelong physical and cognitive impairment.

The same can be said of Robin Cummings. The CEO of Cullman-based Peoples Bank and a member of the business family whose name was long synonymous with sporting goods and local athletics, Cummings, now 71, was an active and energetic fixture in local business and community service before a 2016 stroke left him with severe physical impairment, predominantly on his left side.

It makes sense, then, that both Winfrey and Cummings — two local people at very different places in life — would have casually known about each other before either encountered the adversity that ultimately brought them close; a shared experience of recovery that’s helped them forge an unlikely, but lifelong, friendship.

“Andrew was always in our store,” recalls Robin’s son Steve, who for decades helped operate Cummings Sporting Goods in Cullman’s North Shopping Center. “I actually designed the ‘Pray for Andrew’ sticker after he’d had his accident.”

“And I knew Holly, Andrew’s mom, a little bit from that time he used to spend in the store,” adds Robin. “So it had been a while since all of that, but when Andrew and I both ended up doing physical therapy at the same center in Atlanta, it didn’t take me long to figure out which one Andrew was. He’s gotta be the stoutest, most physically fit person I’ve ever met. He’s easy to spot.”

So it would seem. Winfrey was a multi-sport athlete at Cullman who’d given his verbal commitment to play baseball at Mississippi State only two weeks before the accident that changed his future.

“He was 16 years old at the time, and was going to the dentist,” explains Holly. “There were wet roads that morning, and he lost control of his truck and hit a tree. Automatically, he was unconscious. The paramedics came and worked on him for like 45 minutes inside the cab. They had to revive him several different times and eventually cut him out of the truck. He was airlifted him to Huntsville Hospital. He suffered a brain injury, his pelvis was pretty much shattered, and had other injuries — but those were the main ones.”

Andrew’s road to recovery has been lengthy. He spent the first four months following his accident in a coma, before finally waking in Cullman. When he first woke, ten days passed before he was able to begin speaking. Ongoing post-coma trips to Atlanta’s world-renowned Shepherd Center for spinal cord and brain injury continued, transitioning eventually to Shepherd Pathways, the center’s outpatient rehabilitation and recovery program.

It was at Shepherd in Atlanta that Andrew and Robin, each in different stages of recovery, met, after Robin began his treatment there in February of 2017.

“Of course we knew that he was there, but he and I had never met — so we looked him up while we were there,” said Robin. “But once we found him, we could tell: He was the man! He was the ‘mayor’ of the Shepherd Center. Everybody knew him, and he just had a way with people. We did arm wrestling, and I admit…he can get me pretty good. He did let a lady beat him once, but I think that was because she was good looking.”

Andrew grins, but doesn’t deny this. “You got that right!” he says. “The therapists are cute!”

“We got to know each other in our group therapy sessions,” Robin explains. “That’s where Andrew became, I guess you might say, my inspiration — because of his competitive spirit.

“I’ve never seen a man like him who has such a heart of a champion. I needed that attitude. There I was, an old man in the middle of a bunch of kids, and I needed that same kind of attitude. I just didn’t have it as much as he did, and he inspired me. I saw how hard he was working one day on one of the machines — soaking wet with sweat and going at it — and it really helped me find something in myself.”

Both men have continued their physical therapy here at home, and share a good-natured competitive approach to their recovery that pushes each to do his very best. Robin, whose walking still is limited to guided therapy sessions and short distances, insists he’s gotten the better end of that deal.

“I had to give my annual shareholders speech last May at the civic center, and I had to stand at the podium for probably 15 minutes,” he says. “That feeling of standing, of making it happen and seeing people react to that, is really emotional, and Andrew has played such a big part in helping me. He has had to overcome so much, and he’s just doing it. I didn’t lose my memory, or my ability to talk, like he did, and seeing him going so hard at his therapy has been an inspiration.”

Now 22, Andrew has a lot of life ahead. He helps out as a baseball hitting coach at Cold Springs High School (“Go Eagles!” he interjects), and he’s given his testimony of faith and recovery at dozens of local and regional churches: “I’ve talked at probably 80 places over the past few years.”

In fact, Andrew adds, he wants to become a preacher…when he grows up.

Robin has no doubt that’s an attainable goal.

“I figure if he can mentor a 71 year-old…then Andrew can mentor anyone.”