May 19, 2008

Better, but never the same

Trauma survivors gather at Stanford

By Banks Albach / Daily News Staff Writer

Ricky Bunch knows he'll never be the same after Christmas Eve in 2002, when his life changed forever.

Sixteen at the time, Bunch had just gotten his driver's license four days earlier and was driving home in his new Ford F-150 pickup truck on a narrow road in Saratoga.

He doesn't remember missing the turn and said he woke up about eight weeks later.

Bunch slammed through several trees, flew off of a 30-foot cliff and landed upside down in a creek, pinned underneath his dashboard and steering wheel. It wasn't until Christmas Day around noon, about 16 hours later, that he was found.

It took emergency crews 45 minutes to cut him out, and then he was flown to the trauma unit at Stanford University Medical Center. The list of his injuries is substantial: a crushed leg; a rear brain injury, which caused his coma; liver and kidney failure; and a collapsed lung. His leg was so bad that doctors came close to amputating it.

Eight months and 14 surgeries later, Bunch started the long road of rehabilitation.

"I don't think I'll ever be the same, but I can sure try," Bunch said.

Bunch was in good company Sunday afternoon at Stanford Hospital's fourth annual Trauma Survivor Reunion, where dozens of former patients along with their closest friends and family convened to share harrowing stories of survival.

Amber Donnelly, 20, was coming back from Half Moon Bay last October when a large Ford F-350 pickup truck T-boned the Honda civic she was riding in. She suffered a broken pelvis, femur and several broken ribs. Her skull was cracked all the way around, which caused some brain damage. And doctors were so worried about her moving without the bone support in her torso - she suffered two collapsed lungs in the hospital - that they placed her in a chemically induced coma.

"I don't remember anything, even a week before the accident," Donnelly said.

But Sunday afternoon, she simply listened to her parents describe the torturous month in the hospital, almost as if it had happened to someone else. She was far more focused on plans ahead, such as finishing her degree in social work at San Jose State University.

Nationwide, the mortality rate in most trauma centers is around 31 or 32 percent, while Stanford's is about 17 percent, said David Spain, a doctor and surgeon who joined the trauma center seven years ago. Not to be confused with an emergency room, Spain said a trauma center offers much more extensive treatment, from setting protocols and standards before accidents happen, to surgery and through the recovery period, which can take some patients years.

"You have to be prepared to handle anything that comes through the door," Spain said.

That can include something as extreme as a knitting needle impaling Ellin Klor's sternum and heart, or two severely broken legs, one with a compound fracture, that Thomas Pavelko, 59, suffered after being hit by a car on his motorcycle.

John Lauret, 57, a San Jose firefighter, was working on his lawn when he went to retrieve his recycling bins from the driveway. Soon after, a 17-year-old boy on a motorcycle hit him, leaving him near dead in the street.

All seemed humbled, however, by Bunch's story, which seems to link together a long list of miracles, especially how he was found. A friend and his father, driving around on Christmas Day looking for Bunch, decided on a hunch to check the exact area where his truck had landed.

"He could have been down there for months," said Rich Bunch, his father.

Six years later, Bunch said he still struggles. Sometimes he just collapses from his bad leg and he can't run for very long. But he's in school in De Anza College, plays guitar and works with his father teaching at their San Jose jujitsu school.

So while it's obvious to survivors and their families that miracles happen, there's also agreement among the group on something else: It takes a fighter to make the miracles worthwhile.

"Doctors told my parents I might not make it," Bunch said. "(But) I've proven doctors wrong. I'm here to tell you that miracles do happen."



E-mail Banks Albach at balbach@dailynewsgroup.com