The Woodruffs are one of those fun families everybody seems to like.

Matt started his own thriving company, Woodruff Electric, and has a sharp sense of humor. Shannon, a 4-H adviser and education assistant at Bogan Elementary School, radiates strength. Their kids — Luke (14), Katlynn (12) and Olivia (9) — are at that Brady Bunch age.

They live on Stillwell Beckett Road, just outside of McGonigle, and everything was fine.

And then on Jan. 23 everything came crashing down.

On that day Matt suffered an aneurysm that left him with serious damage to the brain. The man who used his skills to install the electrical wiring for a good chunk of western Butler County had to learn to do things all over again.

Like swallow. And walk.

“I’ve known Matt a long time,” said Carol Young, a friend of the family who also is the financial center manager at Fifth Third Bank in Oxford. “He did the electrical work on our house and when I heard what had happened to Matt, my first instinct was that I’ve got to get down there (to University Hospital in Cincinnati) to see if Matt and Shannon are OK.

“I made a few calls to Kristi Princell (another family friend; she works at College Property Management). It was all her idea,” Young said. “She said people were calling, said they wanted to help, to organize a benefit. She said let’s get a committee together, and we’ve been meeting every week with Chuck Emge, Nicole (Green) and her husband, Mike, Jenny Marcum, and Donna and Christine Gross.”

The culmination of their meetings will take place on April 21 at the Milford Twp. Community Center with the Matt Woodruff & Family Benefit, a family-friendly event that will take place from 4 to 8 p.m.

There will be food (served from 5 to 7 p.m.), a disc jockey, games, silent auction, live auction and split the pot. Kids can have their picture taken with a fire truck. There will be fancy fingernail polishing for girls, fake tattoos for boys. Cornhole for adults. A bouncy house (weather permitting). Snow cones and cotton candy.

The auctions, by the way, will have items of real worth. A water heater, antique desk and an American Girl doll already have been donated. Anyone wishing to make donations can contact Young at carol.young@53.com.

Funds will help the Woodruffs cope with expenses, both medical and day-to-day living expenses. Matt was forced to close his business and Shannon took nearly two months off from her job, which the Talawanda district held for her until her return in mid-March. She had no intention of leaving Matt’s side at the hospital.

The day that changed everything was a Monday. It was supposed to be a good day. Shannon had worked at Bogan for three years as a cafeteria monitor and subbing in the office and library. Monday was her first day as education assistant.

It didn’t last long.

“I got up to go to work,” Shannon remembered. “Matt was fine. Then he called me around 9:30 and said his head was killing him, and then he just stopped talking.

“Linda Gleason, the head secretary at Bogan, she followed me to the house,” Shannon said. “I called an ambulance on the way and they came right behind me. Matt was lying on the bathroom floor. He was unconscious, not responding.”

Matt was rushed to Fort Hamilton Hospital. The results of a CAT Scan, Shannon said, showed that he was bleeding. He was transported by helicopter to Cincinnati.

“The doctor said his aneurysm (an abnormal ballooning of part of an artery) is not like regular aneurysms,” Shannon said. “This one was on both sides (of the brain) and he had to clip it on both sides.”

Matt stayed in intensive care for two weeks. His left eye stayed shut for two months because blood had run down into the back of his eyes, Shannon said. When he was able to open his eyes, he had double vision.

And that was just a small part of it.

“He had to learn to walk again, to swallow again,” Shannon said. “He had a feeding tube for probably a month. He had to use a walker.

“He pulled his feeding tube out by himself,” she said. “He took his chair and flipped it over the bed. They had a sitter come in at night and he’d try to get out of bed. The sitter wasn’t watching and the chair got hooked around the feeding tube.

The tube was left out, but it wasn’t as if his first meal was steak and a baked potato.

“Just water,” Shannon said. “And then they would blend everything — ham, turkey. Ugh.”

The worse part for Matt is the inability to go all-out. His body is continuing to mend and so is his mind.

“I don’t remember anything from Jan. 23 to March 3 or 4,” said Matt, who has a large scar on his head. “My short-term memory is definitely affected. My long-term memory is fine.”

Matt might make the same observation three or four times in a span of 20 minutes, but his humor is so relentless that it’s hard to know whether it’s his memory playing tricks or if he’s just having fun with you.

Just as relentless is Matt’s will to get better.

“The doctors and physical therapists are amazed at how quickly he’s come around,” Shannon said.

“Luke messes with him,” she added. “They’ve always roughhoused. Now, he’ll say, dad, you can’t catch me and he goes in slow motion.”

“I took off the other day and almost caught him,” Matt said.

“He surprised everybody when he took off running,” Shannon said. “You tell him he can’t do something and he tries to do it. ... It’s hard. It’s really upsetting that he can’t do things. He’s always been crazy active.”

Matt and Shannon, both graduates of Talawanda, said they have been overwhelmed by the support of family, friends and community.

Andy Hulshult, an employee at Woodruff Electric since 1997 and according to Shannon “such a loyal friend and hard worker,” took over much of Matt’s work and when the company was forced to close he was hired by Brad Hurst, an electrician and family friend.

“And there were friends who had worked for Matt who came and gave their time to finish the electrical jobs,” Shannon noted. “All of the jobs that had been started were completed.”

Support for the Woodruffs has showed itself in other ways, too.

“So many people came down to the hospital,” Shannon said. “I hardly ever left the hospital. I put what had happened on Facebook. So many people responded. People brought food to our house.”

“It was like a grocery store,” Olivia said.

“There were prayers we got from people we don’t even know,” Shannon continued. “We got a gift card in the mail and it didn’t even have a name on it. And my whole family has been just unbelievable. My mom and dad (Helen and Denny Butterfield) moved in with us for two months. And our kids, they’ve been so strong for us. I don’t know how to say thank you enough to everybody. The prayers — I don’t think he’d be alive if not for the prayers.”

Shannon said she doesn’t “feel very strong,” but to others she has been a source of inspiration.

“I’ve worried about her,” Young said, “but she’s amazed me.”

“She amazes me too,” Matt said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 523-4139 or Pete.Conrad@coxinc.com.