How a freak accident gave this Astros prospect a new perspective

With each passing moment, Nehomar Ochoa Jr. realized it wasn't a small rock approaching his car. The object kept getting bigger, and at the last millisecond, he ducked left as the seven-pound hook crashed through his windshield, lodging into his head.

The 19-year-old Astros prospect avoided death -- but only narrowly. And his nightmare ordeal was far from over.

Flipping on his hazard lights, he pulled over to the shoulder on Interstate 95 in South Florida, climbed into the backseat and told his girlfriend to drive to the nearest hospital. Ochoa, the Astros' No. 22 prospect, ripped off his shirt to wrap his head and ease the bleeding above his eye. But as his shirt filled with blood, his nose started to run with it as well.

"That's when I really panicked," Ochoa said. "The hook was in my head, and out of nowhere, I just started bleeding from my nose. I probably have an internal bleeding."

The pickup truck driver driving ahead of Ochoa -- who hit a pothole and lost the hook off his trailer -- initially pulled over, too. But once he saw a blood-dripping Ochoa exit the car, he sped off down the highway.

That night, March 20, the Astros' medical staff met Ochoa in the emergency room, where for the next six or seven hours, he took medication to ease the pain in his head, so excruciating he couldn't open his mouth. Though it was the bleeding that took longer to diminish. A computed tomography (CT) scan showed a dent and fracture above Ochoa's right sinus. The hook pierced into the frontal bone of his forehead, opening a canal through his nose that led to the excessive bleeding and the path for bacteria to reach his brain.

"Doctors told me that two inches down, and I would have completely lost my eye," Ochoa said. "And two inches to my left, and I would have died on the spot.

"If it would have hit me like an inch further behind to my right side, it would have knocked me out cold, and at the speed that I was coming, I would have definitely got into a crash. It hit me on the perfect spot."

The first few nights, Ochoa felt the aftermath of the hit. His head pounded as he tried to find peace after his accident. As he formed thoughts, the words also vanished, taking him a few seconds to pick back up on what he wanted to say.

"I had to be really, really careful, because as soon as I'd touch [the inflammation] or roll around, it'll hurt, it'll wake me up," Ochoa said. "I was a little concerned, because I was having trouble remembering stuff, but later on, as the days went by, I just started feeling better and better."

More than a month later, his recovery progress is plain to see. Exhibit A: he's committed the details of the accident to memory.

"It happened at exactly 4:26 [p.m.]," Ochoa said. "We stopped from 4:28 to 4:31."

A regular afternoon food run with his girlfriend turned into a nightmare, interrupting a strong Spring Training in Minor League camp for Houston's 11th-round pick from the 2023 Draft. The Galena Park, Texas, native received nine Grapefruit League at-bats with the big league club this spring, totaling three hits and a pair of RBIs.

"I felt really good going towards the end of Spring Training," he said. "For everything to happen all at once, it just got to me a week later, and I was thinking about it. But it's nothing that I could do, because I know God has a plan for us. If it happened, it was for a reason."

When Ochoa returned to baseball activity in April, doctors warned him he might feel residual pain. He did. The contact of those first swings felt like the trailer hook slamming into his head. But he never told anyone, practicing through it as he learned to do less in his mechanics to ease his ailing head.

Over time, the pain dissipated as better feeling returned to the right side of his face, where he also suffered nerve damage to the point he lost feeling in parts of his face for a month and a half.

Ochoa kept the hook as a reminder of life's ​​fragility.

He's also pleasantly impressed with himself for taking such a hunking piece of iron to the head.

"The fact that I was able to take that much pain and still be under control, I'm pretty proud of myself, to be honest," he chuckled.

The pickup truck driver was never found, and Ochoa, in the heat of the moment, never thought to remember the license plate number. He's decided to take the high road.

"I'm just glad I'm alive, really," Ochoa said. "I know he didn't mean for that to happen. I know he didn't try to cause any harm to anyone. It just happened, but could he have stopped and checked up on me or called the police or got an ambulance? Yes, absolutely. He probably got nervous.

"You never know what people think whenever they're under pressure. So I don't hold on to hate. I hope everything goes good for him, and hopefully, it doesn't happen to anybody else. And if it happens, I hope he thinks before he makes a decision, and if he has the chance to help that person that's in need of help, then, hopefully, he gives them the hand that he didn't give me."

Ochoa's father, Nehomar Ochoa Sr., was a ballplayer, too, before suffering a career-ending shoulder injury when he fell off a horse in the early 2000s. That connection to a life-threatening accident brought the father and son together during junior's recovery process. They spoke on the phone every day. Ochoa Jr. learned to have patience and be present, and how to be smart in his rehab rather than rush back into things too quickly.

"He told me that it sucks, because it's something no one ever expects to happen to them," Ochoa said. "It's one in a million."

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Running through fielding drills and taking batting practice off a pitching machine, Ochoa hasn't felt bothered by his head injury in recent weeks. He received the all-clear to play in games in early May, beginning a rehab assignment Thursday with the Rookie-level Florida Complex League Astros.

"It's just normal," Ochoa said. "Like if nothing ever happened."