In the midst of Ben Linus' alternate reality segment, Desmond deliberately runs over Locke with his car in the school parking lot. Paramedics bring him to the hospital and admit him into surgery, where Jack is his surgeon. Jack recognizes Locke from the airport. He tells him that upon looking at his spinal injuries, he has concluded that he is a "candidate" for elective spinal correction surgery. However, Locke refuses the operation upon his request. After Jack does some fact finding and visits his father, Anthony Cooper, he returns to Locke and asks him how he became paralyzed. Locke tells him that it was from a plane crash. He had been taking private flying lessons and asked his father to be his first passenger on his first solo flight. Unfortunately, his plane crashed before taking flight, paralyzing both himself and Cooper (his father's injuries were much more substantial than his). Upon telling Jack his story, he leaves the hospital, listening to Jack tell him that he "wished he had believed in him".