Hillis had surgery to remove the tumor days later. He continues to recovers, and he's slowly regaining his ability to speak.
"I couldn’t understand a word anybody said (after the surgery)," he said. "I couldn’t talk. I had family come over, and the only thing I could really do is just sit there and stare at them and listen to whatever they were saying because I didn’t know."
Despite only being a few weeks away from his surgery, Hillis attended a fundraiser for him and his family. An online fundraising campaign has also been started for him.
Remarkably, one of the first things Hillis did after getting out of the hospital was to visit the owner of the house that was damaged in the crash.
"It was heartbreaking to me that I messed her stuff up, not that I had a tumor,” he said. "She was outside cleaning up some of the stuff, and I got out of the car, and I said, 'Ma’am, I want to apologize because I’m the officer that hit your house.' She was like, 'Do not apologize.'"
Three weeks later, Matthew is getting his speech back, just in time for a fundraiser held in his honor at the Twelve Stones Crossing Golf Club in Goodlettsville.
Hillis has been a certified law enforcement officer in Tennessee since 2023 and has served with the Greenbrier department since 2025. Before that, he served in the Army.
"We ask our community to continue keeping Officer Hillis and his family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time," the department stated in a social media post. "The support shown thus far has been deeply appreciated by both the family and our department."
