Just The Beginning…

I woke up at about 8 or 9 a.m.  It doesn’t really matter what time it was, I just know it was early.  I know this because I didn’t go to bed until around 4:30 that morning.  We were at a party until about 2 a.m. the night before, and when we got home we talked the three girls who were with us into getting into my friend Pat’s hot tub.  They didn’t have suits, so Pat and I went into our houses and got shorts and tee-shirts for them.  I couldn’t tell you the names of two of these girls now, but one of them was cute and I was interested; her name was Sue.  Pat and two other friends, Chris, and John, seemed happy enough with the other two anyway.  I was semi-dating someone at the time, but I wasn’t too sure about that.  She was seeing someone else, which I really didn’t care about, and I wasn’t really into the relationship.  I wasn’t even sure she was either for that matter.  It turned out, though, that after we got into the tub I found that I wasn’t really in the mood to chase after her.  Sure, I talked with her, and we joked around and all had a good time–so much so that Pat’s mother had to come out and yell at us; she was really pissed–but we were all pretty beat.  I’m not sure about everyone else, but I even ended up falling asleep.  I woke up to find that Sue had gotten out.  I followed her to the patio, we dried off, exchanged a few words, and said good night.  I didn’t know if I’d see her again, but all I was thinking about was getting to bed.  I knew I had to get up early to go to the shore in the morning.

It was Saturday, June 21, 1986, and it was a beautiful day.  The first day of summer–I live for summer–and I was primed for the beach–so what if I was scheduled for work that day.

That was my first problem, however, it was easily rectified.  I was scheduled to work produce which I couldn’t stand since I started working the Courtesy Booth at Shoprite.  Joe Kelly, Joe Keidel and I had planned to go down to Ocean City, New Jersey, and I figured that I would just call in sick.  I did this–giving some lame excuse–with a clear conscious, because I never called in sick, and, to be honest, I had a really bad attitude about working produce.  After all, what could it possibly hurt?

My second problem was my parents.  I was eighteen, and I had never stayed out until 4:30 in the morning before without permission and without severe retribution.  To make matters worse, I had come in at 2:30 and went back out again, probably waking my mother up and causing her to worry even more.  Basically, I thought I was screwed.  I decided to get it over with because I still had to tell them I was going to the shore.  I slowly went to their room, and to my complete confusion, they weren’t mad.  They even laughed when I joked about it.  This was great! I thought, “Cool! I finally can do what I want, within reason, without getting a hassle.  I love it.” I was feeling good, and I was ready for some sun and sand.

After getting in touch with Joe Kelly, and getting Joe Keidel out of bed, we set off for the beach in Joe Kelly’s green VW Bug.  Besides us, Joe Kelly’s sisters and his girl friend went along–some following in another car and some riding in the Bug.  The trip down was alright, but nothing exciting happened.  Beer was brought along, but I wasn’t too interested.  I think I had two 8 ounce ponies in the whole two hour trip–not enough to affect me.  The person I was dating was in Wildwood for her senior week and she wanted me to come see her.  She didn’t give me an address or anything, she just wanted me to find her.  Well, I decided that the last thing I wanted to do was wander around all day in “Childwood” looking for someone I probably would never find when I could have more fun with my friends.  No, I was bound for O.C.

When we got there, we found parking spots, gathered up our things, and walked toward the boardwalk.  We were looking for a spot to sit, and I couldn’t wait until we did because my foot hurt from stepping on something when I got out of the car, and I wanted to take a look at it.  Somewhere between the tenth and twelfth street beach, we finally found some people that Joe Keidel and I went to high school with, and used their beach passes to sneak onto the beach.  I dropped my things, sat down, and looked at my foot.  I didn’t really see anything so I tried to forget about the slight throbbing, and I got myself comfortable to just lie there and relax.  Joe Keidel wanted me to go with him to find his girlfriend who had a house down the beach, but I was still beat from the night before, and all I wanted to do was crash.  After a small nap, some guys I went to school with and shared a house with the summer before wanted to know if wanted to go swimming.  I don’t know why I did, but I reluctantly agreed, got up, and followed them down the beach.  As we got near the water, I saw what I thought was a very nice looking girl in a bikini with her back toward me.  Being the walking hormone that I was at the time, I decided to make my move.  I started running toward the water with the intention of diving in next to her, splashing her, and then getting up to talk to her.  It sounded good at the time, but it didn’t work out exactly as I planned.  I did run toward the water.  I did dive in next to her and probably splashed her.  But, I never did get up to talk with her.

I’m not exactly sure what happened.  Forgive me if what I’m about to describe isn’t quite clear to you, but it’s not quite clear to me.  I remember realizing that I couldn’t move my body.  I couldn’t feel anything either–my foot didn’t hurt anymore.  I knew I was under water so I slowly opened my eyes to see nothing but the murky green of the NJ water.  All I felt was the motion of the waves bobbing me up and down.  I knew I had broken my neck.  I was face down in the water and knew that the first thing I had to do was turn over so I could breath.  I wasn’t too worried about holding my breath because I used to practice holding it when I swam for my high school swim team and once swam two lengths of a twenty-five yard pool under water with one breath.  I was being surprisingly calm and was trying to think it through.  Ironically, a week earlier, I helped out Pat’s sister, Cindy, who taught a life-saving course at the local “Y.” She needed “victims” for her students to save so I volunteered.  One thing I had to do was act as though my back had been broken.  I remembered how easily they turned me over on my back and I tried doing it myself.  I couldn’t use my arm or body muscles to flip over but my neck still worked.  I tried several times to turn my head fast enough hoping that my body would follow, but it didn’t work.  In retrospect, this probably did more damage, but at the time, it seemed to be the only way to save my life.  I was still calm, but it seemed I was there forever, and I was wondering what was taking so long for someone to pull me out.  So many things were going through my head: Where were my friends?  Where was the lifeguard?  I even wondered where the girl was who I tried to splash.  It was so quiet and I felt very alone.  Finally, I saw a hand right next to me.  Someone saw me and was about to rescue me! However, whoever this person was, he wasn’t doing anything to help me.  I started to get a little anxious–Why wasn’t this person doing anything?  What was he waiting for?  Then it hit me.  It was my own hand that I saw.  A hand I couldn’t feel or use, like it wasn’t even mine.  I panicked.  I screamed, but the sound was lost in the water around me.  Then I was calm again.  I started to think about what would happen to me.  Was I going to die?  Was it going to be over soon?  It seemed impossible.  Then, just as I felt like I ran out of time, I felt myself rolling over.  I could see sunlight, and felt the warmth on my face.  Someone had seen me, and they were bringing me out.  Slowly and carefully, they got me to the beach.

I found myself lying on the beach, staring up at the crowd of people that started to form around me.  I saw the lifeguards trying to stabilize me; I saw my friends, staring in disbelief, trying to reassure me; and I saw the strangers staring at this boy who was lying helpless on the beach.  What seemed to be an unbearable amount of time spent face-down in the water was, in actuality, not that long at all.  According to the lifeguard it wasn’t that much more than a minute, if that.  They asked me a bunch of questions: Did I swallowed water?  No.  Can I feel this or that?  No.  Can I move my arms or legs?  No.  Can I shrug my shoulders?  Yes! I could shrug my shoulders! I felt if I kept shrugging my shoulders I’d be all right.  Then they asked if I felt any pain.  I didn’t notice it while I was in the water, but, yes, my shoulders did ache.  I started to think maybe I didn’t break my neck.  Maybe I just twisted something.  After all, I wouldn’t be able to shrug my shoulders or feel pain if I had broken my neck, right?  I kept asking the lifeguards, “Is that good?  Is that good?” They answered “yes,” but continued to work on me–putting a neck brace on me and strapping me to a back board.  Finally they put me into a four-wheel-drive truck which brought me to a waiting ambulance.  That was when it all started to hit me.  I started to feel sick to my stomach, I felt the aching getting worse, and I started to get scared.  Finally we reached Shore Memorial Hospital.

Now everything started to become a blur.  There were all these people rushing around me trying to save my life.  I didn’t know what was going on.  The next thing I knew was that I was lying on a table in the emergency room.  I heard someone order a nurse to take off my shorts, and I remember being angry when I realized that they were cutting them off instead of just taking them off me.  After all, they were a good pair of shorts.  Then I heard the doctor ask for two cocaine swabs.  I thought this was interesting because I had never tried cocaine, and now a doctor was shoving it up my nose.  It seemed kind of funny until I found out that he was using it to numb my nose so he could put a tube up my nose and down my throat so I could breath.  Cocaine or not, it was still very painful, but I couldn’t fight it.  Things started getting even more blurry.  I’m not sure of everything else they did to me, but what I do remember, and always will, is the weighted brace they used to stabilize my head.  The screwed the brace into the sides of my head.  I could feel the pressure as the screws bored in deeper.  It felt as though the my head was in a vice, and I could feel the warm tears rolling down my cheeks.

I don’t remember much after that; the next two days were spent falling in and out of consciousness.  I vaguely remember my parents visiting me.  They tried to reassure me, but although the brace prevented me from turning my head, I could hear my mother crying somewhere nearby.  I could hear the radio that a fellow patient was kind enough to let my parents borrow.  They set it to WMMR, my favorite station.  Finally, I remember the hospital staff preparing me for the trip to Thomas Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia.  This was just the beginning of a long and difficult journey…