Friends Pitching In to Help Get Paralyzed Youth on Road Back
August 2, 1986
Source: The Times Herald
Author: Regina Ann Purifico
NORRISTOWN – Like most aspiring 18-year-olds, George Butera had a pretty good idea what he wanted out of life and how to go about getting it.
Last year and again this spring, Butera, of Norristown, attended Temple University, learning about computers at the school’s Philadelphia campus and studying business management at the Ambler campus.
Everything was going well for the former Wissahickon High School athlete until a swimming accident June 21 in the waters off the Ocean City shore left him permanently paralyzed from the chest down.
Butera had gone to the New Jersey resort for the day with friends Tina and Joe Kelly and Joe’s girlfriend, Donna Loehmann.
That afternoon, Joe and Donna went to dinner but Tina and George stayed on the beach and George decided to go swimming.
No one could have anticipated what happened seconds after Butera ran into the swirling surf.
“Within five minutes, people came to my daughter saying George was injured,” Tina’s mother, Kathy Kelly, said last week during an interview from her home in Center Square. “Apparently he ran into a wave.”
Lifeguards who watched Butera sprint into the ocean suddenly saw him floating on the salt water and plunged in after the semi-conscious teen, who initially complained of pain to his neck and shoulders.
An ambulance rushed him to Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point where doctors diagnosed he had fractured his fourth cervical vertebrae, the part of his backbone near the spinal column that helps control respiration and body movement.
Butera’s paralysis resulted in his needing a tracheotomy, a surgical operation involving cutting into the trachea to allow breathing with the aid of a respirator. Because of the operation, he will not be able to speak for about two months.
About four days after the accident, Butera was flown by medical helicopter to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, one of the few hospitals in the country that has a spinal column injury department.
There he is slowly learning how to breathe on his own again. In time he will also regain the voice that over the years has lent comfort and support to others, George’s mother, Antoinette “Toni” Butera, said during an interview from her home Wednesday morning.
Helping George regain his sense of pride and self-confidence, his family and friends say, is the most important thing.
“He does have his ups and downs,” Butera said of her second son, who is expected to spend about a year in rehabilitative therapy in Philadelphia area hospitals before returning home.
“George is strong-minded and a very likeable boy,” she added. “He is a talker, a fighter and a charmer.”
Doctors at Jefferson operated on Butera July 3 to ensure he would be able to control his head movements by grafting some of his hipbone to the damaged vertebrate. He is expected to wear a crown brace about his neck for about three months to allow time for the bone graft to take shape.
To help his family with medical and other expenses, about 30 of George’s friends recently formed the Friends of George Butera Committee and have come up with several fund raising projects, according to Mrs. Kelly.
She admitted learning about George’s accident “really hit home because the kids were always hanging around the house.”
“They were all on the beach together,” Mrs. Kelly said. “It could have been any one of them.”
The committee created a George Butera Rehabilitation Fund located at the Meridian Bank on DeKalb Pike in East Norriton.
So far the group has planed a beef and beer night and a raffle with most of the supplies coming from unions and area businesses.
It is also trying to secure Wissahickon High’s football field for a benefit concert In September, said Mrs. Kelly, adding details are now being worked out and the committee has the school district’s support.
Rock star Robert Hazard and a local group called The Flaming Caucasians have agreed to play at the benefit, according to Mrs. Kelly, and committee members are trying to attract other groups to, draw a large crowd.
Most of the 275 tickets for the August 16 beef and beer are sold out, as are about 3,000 tickets for the September 20 raffle that will feature $100 and $200 prizes.
The Shop Rite supermarket in East Norriton where George worked is donating most of the food, Teamsters Local 384 of Norristown has donated its hall and Fairway Pharmacy in Whitpain has donated prizes for the beef and beer.
Burger King, whose administrative offices are located in Whitpain, has donated most of the paper goods and Whitpain Beverage on Route 202 and J and J Spill Service and Supplies of Norristown have donated the beer.
Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 1357 of Philadelphia, of which Mrs. Kelly’s husband Joe is a member, had the raffle tickets printed.
The committee has held its meetings at J.B. Witley’s restaurant in Whitpain, courtesy of owner Wit Hammond.
Kathy Furman of Ambler, a 1983 Wissahickon graduate, has written letters to George’s 1985 classmates about the accident and the fund and the committee has circulated George’s picture and details of the accident to area businesses on leaflets his brother Michael Butera had printed.
As of yesterday, Genuardi supermarkets agreed to donate 1 percent of its total register receipts to Butera’s rehabilitation fund.
Tape drop sites are located at Meridian banks on DeKalb Pike and Germantown Pike and the Swede Square Pharmacy in East Norriton, Video Village and Fairway Pharmacy on Township Line Road, Whitpain Beverage on Route 202, Cos-Medic World in the Whitpain Shopping Center on DeKalb Pike and Young’s Regency Skating Rink on Skippack Pike in Blue Bell.
The committee has already inspired one 10-year-old boy, Jamie Ryan of Center Square. Ryan recently brought “his life’s savings,” $9.75, to the Kelly home, according to Mrs. Kelly.
“He had his parents drive him over and said to my son, ‘Joe this is for George,’ ” she added. “It just choked us all up.”
Preparing for the extensive personal care George will require, Toni and her husband, Gasper “Gab” Butera, have been attending group sessions at the hospital for families and friends of spinal injury patients.
“It’s so unbelievable,” his mother said of the youngest of her three children who once played soccer and lacrosse in high school and was an avid swimmer. “I see him lying in the bed and I say I can t believe this is happening to us.”
His parents say they have learned to take things one day at a time and are grateful for the overwhelming support the community has given them.
The Buteras are finding inner strength “with the help of all these people and with the fund,” Mrs. Butera said, waiting for the day her son will come home.
Donations should be made to the George Butera Rehabilitation Fund.