Gingras lives in the 'Land of What Is'
During North Bay League football practice this week Rob Gingras talked to teammates about his injury last year where he almost lost his arm in a Polaris accident. Gingras was named honorary captain for the Kiwanis All-Star football game.
CRISTA JEREMIASON / PDPublished: Friday, July 23, 2010 at 2:10 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 23, 2010 at 2:10 p.m.
The benign nature of the action, that's what still leaves Rob Gingras speechless and bewildered, even now, five months after it happened. It wasn't like Gingras went into a bar, broke a beer bottle over a stool and challenged the first 10 guys he saw to a fight. At least that would have carried a risk that could merit a horrific result. At least that would have made sense.
But this!
Gingras was driving an ATV in a five-point harness and wearing a seat belt, just like his passenger, Matt Patin, his best friend, the young man who saved his life. They were going 10, no more than 15 miles an hour in the Polaris Razor, Gingras estimated. It was a right-hand turn on flat gravel, the kind of soft turn that doesn't cause an ATV to flip on its left side and change the life of a young man forever.
Gingras is the honorary North Bay League team captain for the 37th Annual Kiwanis All-Star Football Game tonight. So when you see him walk onto SRJC's Bailey Field for the coin flip, give him a hand. It wouldn't be a mistake. For everything Gingras and his family have gone through, for everything they will go through, they have earned that applause. Most definitely, most certainly, they have.
“From the time we got into the ATV,” Gingras said, “to the time it happened, it took only a minute, certainly no more than two.”
On Feb. 28th Gingras and Patin were at a friend's house in Santa Rosa, doing a lap on the flat gravel. They were making a right hand turn to complete the second half of the lap when the left-side tires grabbed. Gingras went back later to determine how.
He saw nothing.
The ATV flipped on its left side, Gingras' left arm pinned under the roll cage, his arm caught after having flopped into the air when the vehicle pitched suddenly.
“I thought I had broken my arm,” said Gingras, who was Cardinal Newman's starting nose guard last season, was Second Team All-Empire and would have started tonight for the NBL All-Stars.
A closer look brought him to shock.
“My arm was at a 90-degree angle from my body,” he said, “pointing backward, with my palm up.”
Gingras screamed for an ambulance and screamed for help. Patin tried to lift the ATV. No go. It weighed 1,500 pounds. Another friend came over and the two of them lifted the vehicle enough that Gingras could slip his arm out from under the roll cage.
“The only thing connecting my upper arm to my lower arm,” Gingras said, “was the tough skin around my elbow. My arm was just flopping there.”
His median nerve had been severed. His brachial artery - the major blood vessel in the upper arm which distributes blood to the muscles and the shaft of the humerus, to the elbow joint, to the forearm and the hands – had been severed.
“His arm looked like spaghetti and hamburger,” said Kathryn, Gingras' mother.
Gingras, 6-foot-2, 250 pounds, was bleeding profusely. He said he may have lost up to 80 percent of his blood waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Patin did the only thing that made sense to him at the time – he shoved his hand into the opening in Gingras' arm to reduce and eventually stop the blood flow.
“The doctors told me later,” Gingras said, “that if Matt hadn't done that, I would have died. I would have bled to death.”
Gingras was taken by ambulance to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. For the next nine hours emergency room physicians worked on Gingras. On three separate occasions they told Kathryn and Richard, Rob's father, that their son's left arm should be amputated.
Three times the parents refused.
“They didn't think it was salvageable,” Kathryn said. “I didn't want to make that decision for Rob. I wanted it to be his decision. If, later on, it wasn't working out, it would be Rob's choice. He's a physical kid. He's only 18. We wanted to give him the best chance at quality of life.”
Added Gingras, “The doctors said that if I was 30 years old, instead of 18, they wouldn't have even asked. They would have amputated.”
Kathryn was wondering if the fates were ganging up on her. In November of last year Richard, 54, had suffered a heart attack. His heart had stopped breathing. He had an undiagnosed cardiac problem. He was revived and suffered no serious after-effects.
“Want to know the crazy thing?” Kathryn said. “The same paramedic that helped Richard was the same paramedic who arrived in the ambulance to help Rob.”
After one night at Memorial, Gingras was transferred to UCSF. He stayed there for two weeks before being transferred again to California Pacific Medical Center where he stayed for another six weeks. In the space of those two months Gingras underwent five blood transfusions and 10 operations which included three skin grafts from his right thigh. External fixators were placed on his arm, a stabilizing device of five rods attached to bone to promote healing. Unbelievably the accident did not break one bone.
Gingras has no feeling in his left arm. Three fingers move slightly because of scar tissue around the elbow causes the contraction. He has been told he will undergo at least 10 more surgeries.
“The doctors tell us that within 3-5 years,” Kathryn said, “Rob will have moderate use of his left arm.”
When Paul Cronin, Newman's head football coach, heard of the accident, he called Piner coach Matt Tomlin, the NBL's All-Star coach, and asked Tomlin if Gingras could be made an honorary captain for the Kiwanis game. Tomlin readily agreed.
Cronin's tip of the cap was more than a nice gesture.
“I hope my kids grow up to have the same drive in their life that Rob has,” Cronin said. “Rob wasn't the fastest guy or the strongest guy when he came to Newman as a freshman. In our society people quit if they don't experience immediate gratification, Rob didn't quit when he didn't start. He made himself into the football player he is. By his senior year Rob was one of the best defensive linemen in the area. (By suggesting Gingras be named honorary NBL captain) This was my thank you to Rob for all his hard work.”
That work ethic on the football field is now applied to his rehabilitation. On August 3 he will undergo a median nerve graft operation. Gingras goes to physical therapy three times a week. He wears three compression wraps three times a week as well, to relieve the pressure due to fluid build-up. Still on pain medication Gingras is not allowed to drive.
“I hate to have to ask my mommy to drive me everywhere,” Gingras said.
Gingras is not a happy camper. He is house-bound much of the time, with watching “South Park” and “Family Guy” not quite displacing all the testosterone an 18-year old male contains.
“I am angry,” he said. “I want to go back in time.”
Gingras wants to go back to the life he was anticipating. Ah, but Gingras knows all too well now that life is what happens while you are making other plans. This was not in his plans. After his Newman graduation and playing in the Kiwanis game Gingras was going to Kentucky to learn horseshoeing.
“I'm going to ride my dirt bike again,” Gingras said.
His mother reacted as if her son was about to kiss a rattlesnake.
“No, you're not!” she said.
“Yes, I am,” he said.
Mom and son took a breath. They are both learning how to deal with this as they go. No one writes a textbook on this. Words like “Hang in there” and “One day at a time” don't quite cover it.
“I told Rob we don't live in The Land Of What If,” Kathryn said. “We live in The Land Of What Is.” And this is what it is.
Rob Gingras is alive. Most of his body is still intact, including the keeper of his intelligence and emotions. He has not lost any of what Paul Cronin so admires, that fire in his belly. At 18 most of his life is still out there, ready to be explored and shaped. A life did not end. It has been altered. Sure, Rob Gingras can and has every right to curse the fates, that he will have to go on without all of his original equipment. But as his mom would say, sure beats the hell out of the alternative.
For more on North Bay sports go to Bob Padecky's blog at padecky.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5223 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com
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