ASHBURN, Va. – It started out as one of the better days.

Ken and Sue Diviney and their son, Ryan, were spending Labor Day weekend at their peaceful cabin in West Virginia.

The family often retreated there to enjoy some fresh air.

At 29 years old, Ryan depended on his parents to interpret his needs. In 2009, a savage beating left him in a minimally conscious coma. He could breathe on his own but was unable to communicate or move his body.

That morning, Sue woke Ryan up to do muscle-building exercises with his dad. After, the three of them sat on the front porch, chatting and basking in the warm summer sun.

They watched Ryan's favorite college football team win, the West Virginia Mountaineers. When they played "Country Roads" after the game, the entire crowd sang along. Ryan loved when they did that.

“It was such a great day,” Ken recounted.

But around 6 p.m., Ken looked over at his son and felt that something was off. He took Ryan’s blood pressure and discovered it was in the 165 range.

Knowing an ambulance would take too long, Ken decided to drive Ryan to the hospital, and Sue followed in the truck. He kept a close eye on Ryan through a makeshift mirror, his eyes darting between the road and Ryan, back at the road and to Ryan again.

All of a sudden, he saw his son sit upright with a heavy breath in and then drop.

“I looked back and I knew he was dead,” Ken said with a deep sigh.

Still driving, Ken started giving Ryan CPR with one hand as he tried to find a place to pull over.

But it was too late.

The Divineys spent a decade fighting for Ryan’s life. And Ken thought he’d be ready – he'd watched his son die and be revived three times before.

“This is so hard,” Ken said a few days after his son's death. “It was a great day until that. A lot of great days …”

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'You do everything you can for me'

In 2009, Ryan was a sophomore in his fall semester at West Virginia University when he was attacked by a group of men outside a convenience store.

Ryan was sucker-punched in the head by a student. As he lay on the ground, another teen kicked his head as if he were punting a football, The Washington Post reported a witness saying.

Ryan barely survived and never fully recovered.

Although he was able to breathe on his own without life support, the attack left him in a minimally conscious coma – what some refer to a vegetative state – for the rest of his life.

His father left his job at a sports consulting company to be his primary caretaker.

The news of the attack devastated the community, who Ken said rushed to the family’s aid and donated whatever was needed to make Ryan’s care more comfortable.

The entire basement of the house was remodeled to accommodate Ryan's needs, including a giant bathroom that fit his chair, which was done free of charge by local companies.

“There were times when my knees buckled and just people were there,” Ken said. “Whatever we needed, and we couldn’t get through any other means, people did it. And they loved doing it for him.”

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Every day for almost 10 years, Ken woke his son up around 6 a.m. to start their routine of exercises: passive cycling for the legs and hands, vibration machines, audio stimulation and more.

He made sure Ryan was never bored – Ken spoke to him all day, took him outside when it was nice and made sure someone was always there with him.

At the end of the day, Ken would give Ryan a shower and put him to bed.

The family’s decision to do this every day, to care for their son while he fought to recover, was actually made by Ryan himself.

Three months before the attack, Ken said, they had a conversation while soaking in the hot tub about people who were living in comatose conditions.

“If anything like that ever happens to me, you do everything you can for me,” Ken recalled Ryan saying.

“And we did. Relentlessly.”

Ryan Diviney, the all-American boy

Ken says most people would describe his son as the all-American boy.

Ryan loved watching sports, but his favorite to play was baseball, and he was one of the hardest hitters anyone had ever seen.

“I would throw buckets and buckets of balls for him to hit,” Ken recalled. At one point, Ryan began hitting the balls so hard that Ken was afraid to stand on the mound.

To honor his athletic legacy, Ryan’s high school baseball team retired his jersey, something Ken had never heard of any high school doing before.

As a sophomore, he was picked as one of Virginia’s top 50 college prospects. However, Ryan earned his spot at WVU with a partial academic scholarship to major in pre-law with his sights set on being a senator or judge. He received the presidential award for his 4.0 GPA after the first semester of his freshman year.

He had a 3.81 GPA the night of the attack.

But Ken says it’s not just Ryan’s academic and athletic achievements that has made him a proud father. He loved the way Ryan inspired his younger sister, Kari, who applied to WVU after visiting Ryan on campus. She received her acceptance letter when her brother was in the ICU.

“I’m doing everything to remember my brother,” Ken remembers his daughter saying.

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Ryan was a shining example for Kari, but his reach extended beyond the family as well.

Ken recalled receiving numerous letters after his son’s attack detailing the small things he did for people every day. Even 10 years later, Ken is still hearing new stories about his son – whether it was defending an unpopular kid at school or being there for a friend whose father was terminally ill.

At Ryan's funeral, his school friend Tommy Meier recalled in his eulogy how the two met. Their friendship was solidified in the eighth grade when Ryan stood up to bullies who said they wanted to beat up his best friend.

"From that day on, I felt secure and fearless whenever I was with you," Meier wrote. "You brought out the best in me."

Living on without Ryan

The medical bed in Ryan's room sits empty. And there's no longer a need for the exercise machine at the other end of his room. But his presence is still everywhere in the Virginia home.

The first game of the NFL season was marked by Ryan's favorite spread, a concoction of nachos, cheese, chili and smokies loaded with brown sugar. Before the attack, the family would sit on the couch around the ottoman to share the family delicacy while watching football games.

But no double dipping, Ken said. That was Ryan’s rule.

According to the family’s Facebook page, where they kept the community updated with his condition, services to celebrate Ryan’s life were held Sept. 6 and 7.

In lieu of flowers, the family asked for attendees to donate to the making of their documentary “Storming,” which followed the daily lives of Ken and Sue Diviney as they cared for Ryan for a decade.

Ken said he's grateful for the community's help. He'll pay forward their kindness and donate Ryan's equipment – it's what Ryan would've wanted.

“There’s a lesson to be learned here,” Ken said. “Treat people well. We’re all interconnected.”

Ken wants to take everything Ryan has taught him, before and after the attack, and apply that to his next venture in life.

He’s not sure what that will be yet, or when there will be better days ahead. But he knows that whatever he’ll do, it will involve sharing his story in Ryan's name.

Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.