Jarod Adkison remembers only a fraction of what happened on July 26. Barton Springs Pool.
The 33-year-old, who usually babysits his 9-year-old son on weekends, had a rare weekend to himself while his son vacationed with his mother. Adkison had just finished a long bike ride around Lady Bird Lake and decided to cool off at Barton Springs.
Jarod Adkison revisits the site where his jaw was broken in Barton Springs, Austin, Monday, 2025. October 20 July 26 Adkison stood up for a transgender woman in an attack that left the attacker with a broken jaw and a concussion. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman)
He met three women by the pool and had a friendly chat with them before going on his way. As he sat by the water, he saw three drunken men approach the women and make fun of one of them, a Translucent woman.
“It all started because the men saw the trance and made an obscene gesture,” Adkison said.
A couple of women were thrown to the ground, he said. “I was trying to get involved defensively, tell the guys to move on,” he said. “One of the guys hit me a couple of times. I didn’t try to fight back.”
According to the police report, one of the men approached from behind and struck Adkison in the head. Adkison fell to the ground. He suffered a broken jaw and a concussion.
Another thing Adkison remembers is the CT scanner at Dell Seton Medical Center where his head was scanned.
He passed out again and came walking down the hospital corridor. Adkison was very confused. He removed the IV from his arm and left the hospital. He didn’t have any identification and didn’t know where he was, but managed to call his parents to come pick him up.
Based on the GPS location of his wireless headphones, he figured out where his bag was. One of the women kept it for him and he was able to retrieve it. “She was happy I was OK,” Adkison said.
Although the hospital urged him to stay and come back later to fix his jaw, Adkison was very confused about what had happened and the extent of his injuries. In his ear canal was a piece of bone from his jaw which was full of blood.
Adkison, who works for a small construction company, does not have insurance through his employer and earns too much to qualify for Medicaid or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He needed time to figure out his son’s care, quit his job, and find a way to pay for his jaw surgery.
Adkison’s parents started a Go Fund Me site that raised more than $74,000, but not enough to pay for the surgery out of pocket.
“I was annoyed to ask for help,” Adkison said. “A lot of people donated. It was huge.”
The donations helped cover the time he took off work because Adkison is also off sick.
Dr. CJ Langevin, a plastic surgeon at Wellspring Plastic Surgery, was contacted by one of his patients about Adkison. He agreed to perform jaw-repair surgery for free if Adkison could pay for the surgery time, which was $1,400.
August 13 Langevin replaced Adkison’s jaw and wired it shut. Langevin explains that it is like a cast on a broken arm. You hold the bone in place until it can heal.
For two weeks, Adkison ate everything he could swallow through a straw. “Ice cream and milkshakes were the staple,” he said.
Then for another two weeks, Adkison had rubber bands, similar to people with braces, to help keep his bite in place. He continued to eat only soft foods: lots of pasta and fried potatoes.
October 7 Adkison had one last check with Langevin. “He should be completely healed,” Langevin said. “He was a wonderful patient.”
“It was pretty minimal work for me,” Langevin said.
Askison said Langevin and his assistant “were the nicest people.”
He said he intervened because he was physically closer to where the women were and had just spoken to them, “and they were really nice.”
His son now tells people, “My dad is a hero,” though Adkison was careful not to tell his son too much about what happened.
“Honestly, I think I did the right thing,” Adkison said. “If I hadn’t helped, I would have felt terrible.”
Adkison had to be persuaded by friends to press charges. Two people, Joshua McKeith Bell, 28, and Matthew Robert Villanueva, 29, were charged with aggravated assault.
“I have no ill will,” Adkison said. “These are young guys, but you can’t go around beating people up and putting them in the hospital.”