Danny Ellerd weighed 92 pounds when police found him under a bridge on Interstate I-40 in Oklahoma.
They were going to arrest him on outstanding warrants, but he was so deteriorated by 15 years of addiction that he ended up in the emergency room. Doctors saved his life and also his hand, which was infected from injected heroin use. “I had no control over myself. Drugs controlled me. I had become a completely empty person”, he himself said some time later.
He arrived at Hope is Alive with only a bag of clothes from Walmart. From then on, everything changed: he entered recovery, graduated from two rehabilitation programs, and returned to study Computer Information Systems at Oklahoma State University Oklahoma City. Forty-four months after living on the street with a sign in his hands, Danny graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA, wearing a suit and completely sober.
