An 18-year-old Healdsburg man who broke his neck on Saturday at a Russian River beach is paralyzed below the neck and in intensive care at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.
Honza Ripa, who graduated three weeks ago from Healdsburg High School, fractured two vertebrae in his neck during a weekend outing with friends to the river. He underwent nine hours of surgery on Sunday and remained heavily sedated, breathing through a tube Thursday, said his mother?s boyfriend, Steve Kanzler of Santa Rosa.
Doctors cannot repair the damage to the teen?s spinal cord and nerves and have offered no prognosis on the degree of permanent damage, Kanzler said. That?s left a community searching for ways to help and a family, originally from the Czech Republic, holding vigil bedside as they face an uncertain future with their ailing son and brother.
?He knew we were there,? said Grady Wann of Healdsburg, who was Honza?s high school golf coach and saw him in the hospital Sunday night.
Honza can make eye contact and can move his shoulders, but nothing lower, his brother, Vojta Ripa, 19, said.
Brianna Angell, 17, said she and a friend deposited almost $694 in an account to help the family Thursday after collecting it from jars placed at Healdsburg businesses.
Angell, who just finished her junior year at Healdsburg High, said she met Honza in a ceramics class last September, and described him as funny and strong.
?In a good way, he knew what he wanted,? she said.
Angell was with Honza and other friends on Saturday at a spot on the river known as Eagle Rock. She watched Honza do a back flip off the rock into water about 14 feet deep.
He swam over to her and was ?totally fine,? she said.
No one saw exactly what he did after that, but Honza went into the water in a shallow area with a sandy bottom, Angell said.
When he surfaced, he was clearly drowning, said his brother, who was not at the beach.
Friends pulled him out of the water and found that he was going in and out of consciousness, his brother said.
?We knew it wasn?t good,? Angell said. ?He was telling us he knew he was paralyzed.?
Angell sat next to her friend, waiting for help to arrive. ?I was trying to hold his hand and he said he couldn?t feel it,? she said.
A top student and No. 1 golfer on the Healdsburg High team, Ripa had a lot of friends at school, his brother said. Honza had already enrolled in a summer class at Santa Rosa Junior College and planned to join his brother as a student there in the fall.
The brothers and their mother, Katka Ripova, are from the Czech Republic and are not American citizens. They came to California in 2000 and moved to Healdsburg within months.
Ripova, who earned a dental assistant?s certificate at SRJC, works as an assistant to a Healdsburg dentist, Dr. Marc Alexander, and is in the process of obtaining a green card, Kanzler said.
Ripova is the sole wage earner for herself and two sons and has struggled to support them.
?It?s been a tough go for her as a single mom,? Kanzler said.
The family has no health insurance, Kanzler said.
Ripova grew up in Liberec, a city 60 miles north of Prague. She met an American who was teaching English in the Czech Republic in 1999 and moved to California with him. The couple divorced, Kanzler said.
Ripova is a familiar face in Healdsburg, having previously worked at two local hangouts, the Downtown Bakery and Flying Goat Coffee.
?People stop her on the street and say ?Hi, Katka,? Kanzler said.
Ripova declined to be interviewed on Thursday, a co-worker said.
Wann said his son, Kelson, and Honza had been friends since elementary school, both of them blonde, skinny kids who grew up together.
?I always think of him smiling,? Wann said, describing Honza as a bright, somewhat mischievous person.
?He had a gleam in his eye,? Wann said.
Kelson developed a business out of collecting lost golf balls at Tayman Park, Healdsburg?s golf course, and selling them in the clubhouse. Honza inherited the business from Kelson.
Jenean Bingham, Healdsburg High?s athletic director, said Honza wrestled and ran cross country in addition to golfing.
?He was a good spirit,? she said. ?He had a lot of sparkle to him.?
The Honza Ripa Recovery Fund has been established at the Exchange Bank in Healdsburg and donations may be made at any branch of the bank.
Planning is underway for a series of fund-raisers, including a golf tournament, spaghetti dinner, poker tournament and car wash.
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