http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05116/494404.stm
Injured pole vaulter showing signs of progress
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
By Chuck Finder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
KDKA-TV
Ryan Adler is shown in a photo provided by his family.
Click photo for larger image.
The jiggle of a toe. The flutter of what his mother called "his little nose." These were encouraging signs yesterday for the family of Ryan Adler, who remains unconscious a week after the Knoch High School freshman fell roughly 9 feet in a pole-vaulting accident.
"He's doing better than he was," Lisa Adler said yesterday at Children's Hospital, where her youngest son came out of a medically induced coma over the weekend but still hadn't regained consciousness, remaining in guarded condition. "He was basically one level the whole week. I'd say within the last hour he's got his little nose twitching a little bit. His leg. His toe. ... Some really, really small movements. But a little nose twitch will do.
"Today's a real small step in the right direction."
Adler, 15, was injured in a vault at a WPIAL section meet April 17 at North Allegheny. His sister, Maria, was preparing elsewhere on the track to compete in the 200-meter dash and his mother, a middle-school teacher in the South Butler district, was behind a fence snapping digital photographs while her son dashed down the runway.
Adler, a relative newcomer to vaulting who successfully cleared 10 feet, 6 inches in a previous meet at Pine-Richland with a new pole, headed toward a 9-foot bar in a preliminary round. He stalled near the apex of his vault and tumbled into the pit. He landed on his head and shoulders in the padding but was instantly knocked out.
His sister and mother swear they heard him snoring, apparently straining to breathe, once they reached the pit area.
"From my understanding, he didn't quite plant [the pole] in the right spot he needed to plant it," said Lisa Adler, whose oldest son, Chris, 19, pole vaulted early last spring as a Knoch senior until his ankle was injured after landing awkwardly near the pit's padded edge. "[Ryan] just fell sideways into the pit. I've seen people fall into the pit before. I said, 'Oh.' But he didn't get up.
"He was out as soon as he hit. He's been out ever since."
Lisa Adler wore a gray Knoch track sweatshirt at her youngest son's bedside yesterday in the Children's intensive-care unit. She was joined by Chris, who works for a construction company, and her husband, Dan, the owner of a tree-service business -- both of whom spent two days last week, including 27 hours in planes, trying to return home early from the Thailand island of Phuket, where they were 10 days into a two-week church mission to rebuild homes lost in the tsunami. Maria competed yesterday at a school track meet.
Doctors initially placed Ryan into a chemically induced coma to prevent brain swelling. They started to remove him from that state Thursday, but the swelling increased and caused pressure in his skull. They restored the treatment until removing it again Sunday. Yesterday, Ryan showed traces of activity.
The physicians have told the Adlers that a precise diagnosis remains unknown until he fully awakes.
"We won't know until Ryan shows us," his mother said. "It's going to be a long journey. We wait and see to what extent that is."
They believe paralysis isn't an issue. He flailed his right arm while being placed in an ambulance at the track, something his sister figured was a reflexive movement by her younger brother subconsciously thinking he was still pole vaulting. His mother saw him wave his left arm at a nurse. Just the same, nothing yet is definitive.
Ryan's accident is considered the first serious incident to befall a pole vaulter under new U.S. safety rules -- particularly, requiring the widening of the pit area and addition of extra padding -- instituted since Penn State pole vaulter Kevin Dare and two high schoolers were killed in 2002.
His parents wondered if track rules could be changed to allow a "spotter," similar to gymnastics, who could catch a falling athlete or prop padding underneath one.
"I think something needs to be done when they do fall backward," Ryan's father said. "That is the scary part."
The family talked about being overwhelmed by a show of support from their Penn Township neighbors, Knoch and the track community, and beyond.
"People Dan left behind in Thailand were praying for this boy," Ryan's mother said.
"I think from this point on now, it's going to be a little bit better," his father added, noticing his youngest son's slight movements. "It seems like we're getting some reaction. We're just being very optimistic."
