The summer of 2008 was nice and calm. A mixture of hockey tournaments and visits to LBI for some beach and crabbing fun. Not much to talk about. Joe was getting ready for another season with the Philadelphia Little Flyers and working hard at it. Nick was getting ready for his first year at Holy Ghost Prep and too, working hard at it. Lori and I decided to have a barbecue birthday party for Joey. Invite family and friends and some of Joe’s teammates over to our home in UM.
It was a beautiful day in September and we had a pretty large turnout to celebrate Joe’s twelfth on the 21st. The boys decided to follow Joe around the corner to a neighbors house to have some fun. The house had a huge hill right in front, some forty or fifty feet tall. They were running up and down and rolling down, whatever twelve year old boys do. As the hot dogs and hamburgers were grilling, Joe’s friend Kevin came running to the deck of our house yelling for help. I calmed him down for a second and he said that Joe was hurt bad. Really bad. I took off running towards a sound that began to become louder and louder. Horrible screaming was coming from around the corner and I couldn’t get there quick enough. It was bad… really bad.
The boys were running up and down the hill, chasing each other. Joe was chasing Kevin’s brother Colin down the hill when Colin tripped in front of him. Joe tried to jump over Colin and launched himself in the air. He landed on the sidewalk, trying to brace himself on his right hand to cushion his fall. When I reached him, Joe was lying on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. His arm was somewhat covered by his head and he was shaking. In shock. The next thing I saw almost made me throw up. His hand was facing 90 degrees from his forearm. A double compound fracture with the bones sticking out of his skin. When he landed, both bones in his arm snapped in half. It was horrible. I dialed 911 on my cell immediately and asked for an ambulance to get there as quick as possible. I knew that there was nothing that I could do other than to try and comfort him. He couldn’t be moved. I rubbed his back and spoke to him to keep him alert. I didn’t know what else to do. I told him to try to breath deep and relax the best he could until the ambulance got there. In true Joe fashion, he snapped back at me…” Relax!!! Do you not see my Fuc@!%*ing arm!!!” OMG.
In a few minutes, a car pulled up with a paramedic inside and well, she almost threw up too! Joey was irate by this point and said ” Where is the freaking ambulance!”. I can’t imagine how much pain he was in. The paramedic apologized. There were so many calls that afternoon that none were available just yet. She took his vitals and examined him the best she could just as the ambulance arrived. They loaded him up quickly on a backboard, stabilizing his arm to prevent more injury. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot of blood and the break hadn’t caused injury to the main vessels in his arm. As soon as he was in the ambulance, the paramedics broke protocol and administered Morphine right away to ease his pain. This was one tough motherf#$@*ing kid. I rode to Abington hospital with the first paramedic to arrive while Lori followed in our car. Everyone was really shooken up, especially Joe’s friends. The party, unfortunately, ended soon thereafter.
We arrived at the hospital quickly and the ER received Joe right away. The docs decided to call in an orthopedic specialist immediately and while we were waiting, they were thinking about flying him to CHOP in downtown Philadelphia. Since his fracture was compound, there was a great risk for infection. He had dirt and other debris in the wound that needed to be taken care of right away. The Surgeon got there and decided that there was no time to waste. He would operate immediately. This was so scary. Yet another time Lori and I would have to see one of our boys taken away into a serious surgery. Joe’s friends all had arrived at the hospital soon after us. They were so worried about him. The nurses let them back to see him before the surgery. He was actually hysterical. Funny that is. He was very high on Morphine and man was he in rare form. They all laughed as he rambled on and on. Finally, the surgery team was ready to go and took him down to the operating room area. It was a Sunday and not much staff were around. The Surgeon introduced himself to Joe and wrote in Blue magic marker “This one”, on his right hand. When the Surgeon stepped away, Joe whispered to us to get him another Surgeon right now! “Is this guy serious?”, he said. “He has to mark which arm to operate on!” “He can’t tell which one’s broken!” It was a great laugh at such a tense and terrible moment. The operation took a few hours but was very successful. He came out into recovery with a huge cast and an even better sense of humor. Post-op anesthesia recovery comedy. The nurses loved him.
A few days in the hospital to recover and make sure that there was no infection was the beginning of a long and arduous journey to normalcy for this poor kid. He would miss the majority of his hockey season and come back to of course, more controversy. I’ll leave that for another blog. There was no question though…we were so proud of him. This was a “Bad Break” and he handled it like a man. A real Man.
Next Up: The Gold Rush