Molecular biologist Evan Pannick encounters complete powerlessness in the midst of a personal medical crisis that his doctors do not understand, when he and his girls soccer team are held hostage by an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institute in Lexington, Kentucky. Modern medicine is supposed to have all the answers. Inmates in Federal Prisons are not supposed to be able to take hostages outside prison walls. Molecular biologist Evan Pannick is just supposed to get his biomedical grant out on time, coach soccer and enjoy his quietly subdued academic life. On One Freak Day everything changes and Evan Pannick finds himself unwillingly transferred from his peaceful academic world to the center of a deepening dilemma fraught with multiple challenges in an escalating situation that threatens him, his daughter and the girls he coaches. Centered in Lexington, Kentucky, the story shuttles between hometown quirkiness and the Federal Prison on the outskirts of town.