Second Impact

by David Klass

  “Did I hold on to the ball, Jer?” he asked as they reached the doors of the ambulance.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Just chill. We’ll win this one for you.” And we did.

  When I got to the hospital, Danny was sitting up, totally alert, and all he wanted to talk about was the game. “How did it end?”

  “They got two first downs, but then we stopped them cold. We’re in the States!” I saw him wince and blink his eyes quickly. “What’s the matter, Danny. Are you in pain? Should I get a doctor?”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” he said, lying back on the examining table. “It’s just a headache. The docs said it’s normal when you get your bell rung. You should know.”

  “I do know,” I told him.

  He smiled up at me. “The States! Son of a bitch. How about that Jerry? We did it!”

  He held up his hand, and I slapped him five, but very gently. “Yup, we did, old buddy. Now chill, and rest easy.”

  View 6 reader comments:

  Posted by user MONSTERofSandRiverMyAss at 9:13 p.m.

  GOOOO Tigers! Eat dirt Blue Devils! You think you’ve got a monster but we’re going to STATEEEE

  Posted by user KENDALLLL at 9:15 p.m.

  WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS.

  Posted by user DanTheMAN at 10:02 p.m.

  Totally worth it!! You better believe I’m back on my feet and ready to play, Jerry.

  Posted by user TigerMom at 10:13 p.m.

  I was terrified for you, Dan, glad to hear you’re doing better. I was one of the people praying for you when you went down, and I hope you’ll take it a little easy at least for the next few days until you’re completely back to normal.

  Posted by user CrustyAlum at 10:28 p.m.

  Coach Shea is the finest football mind our town has ever seen. To all who say he needs to be replaced, I would direct you to the trophy case in the lobby of Kendall High.

  Posted by user MONSTERMASHofSandRiver at 11:57 p.m.

  King Kong got his. Godzilla got his. And now the so-called “Monster” of Sand River lives no more!! GO TIGERS!

  FOLLOWING MY STORY

  Posted by user CARLA on November 22 at 9:23 p.m.

  I drove to the hospital behind the ambulance carrying Danny Rosewood. Well, actually, my father drove. And actually, we weren’t right behind the ambulance, because of course he had to wait and see Kendall win. We were right down near the sideline—me with my special press privileges—and there I was, pulling on his sleeve. I was practically begging, so we got up and started moving toward the exit, but I could feel he was hanging back, wanting to see the final plays, so I just turned toward the field myself, once we were close to the exit, and we watched Kendall block Sand River’s final attempts, and the big clock count down, and then, as our side started to celebrate, I dragged my dad out into the parking lot and we took off. It could only have been a ninety-second or so delay, because that was all the time remaining, and what surprised me was how impatient I was. I didn’t even care that our team was winning, that we were getting into the tournament—I just wanted to follow my story.

  So that’s what this blog is going to be about, following my story. And I warn you, it’s going to take some unexpected twists and turns, and something in me wants to write it in a kind of angry and bitter voice. But I’m trying not to do that. I’m trying to tell it the way it happened and show you the way I was feeling and thinking while it was happening. Following my story.

  Because all of a sudden, Danny Rosewood was my story. I guess I should explain that since I turned in the athletes and injury story that I hope you all read in the school paper, I’ve been working on football injuries, reading about them, thinking about them. I mean, it’s been practically all head trauma, all the time, so when I saw Danny knocked unconscious on the field like that, all I could think about was how will he be assessed, what kind of care will he get—it was like my story coming to life. Talk about a Kendall spin!

  When we got to the hospital, I did something just a little bit sleazy, I guess. I let my dad walk with me into the emergency room, walk me right past the desk and into the back. It would never occur to him to stop and identify himself, everyone knows who he is, and it would never occur to him that there’s any part of the hospital he can’t just walk into. So I walked back there with him, and it looked pretty quiet in the back. You could see a bunch of empty hospital beds, each in its own little yellow-curtained alcove. There was a family over on the side with a little blond girl who was breathing in medicine from one of those machines they use on kids with asthma, and all the way over on the other side, a white-haired old lady asleep in one of the beds. And that was it—nurses checking on the little girl, a guy in scrubs listening to the old lady’s heart without her waking up. And Danny Rosewood strapped to a board on the bed in the middle.

  I walked up to Danny’s father, who was standing right next to the head of the bed. “Hi, Mr. Rosewood,” I said. “I’m Carla. We’ve met at some of the games.”

  He looked worried, but not crazed, and I guess it helps to be a cop sometimes. I bet he’s seen bad and worse and worst, and this was clearly only in the bad category. I mean, Danny had woken up and talked right there on the field. But on the other hand, he had taken a pretty powerful hit, and there had been this moment, like Jerry said on his blog, when a lot of people had been praying. Including me. (Though I was also already packing up my stuff and thinking about how I would get to the hospital to follow the story—does that make me a terrible person?)

  My dad stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “I work here,” he said to Mr. Rosewood. “I think my daughter wants to interview the fallen hero, but I just came along to be sure that you’re treated right.”

  He said it nice and loud, to be sure the nurses and the ER docs heard him, and I guess it was well-intentioned, and for all I know it meant a lot to Danny’s dad, but I can’t say I really liked it. On the other hand, I didn’t have a leg to stand on (pun intended), given how I had used him to get me in there.

  “Appreciate it,” Mr. Rosewood said.

  “Hi, Danny,” I said. I went and stood right next to his head, on the other side from his dad and mine, because his neck was in one of those big orange braces, and he clearly wasn’t supposed to move his head around to look at me. “It’s Carla,” I said. “I don’t want to bother you if you aren’t up to talking. But I’m going to write up this game for the Kourier, and I bet people would like to know what you have to say.”

  Danny’s eyes slid over to look at me. He’s a good-looking guy, and his face wasn’t messed up or anything. He actually managed something that looked a little like a smile.

  “Who hit me?” he said softly.

  “The cornerback—big guy named Schultz,” I told him. “You had everybody pretty scared.”

  “Just tell me we won,” Danny said.

  Just at that minute, a young doctor in scrubs appeared at the side of the bed.

  “Hi, folks,” he said. “I’m going to need to do an assessment on Daniel here, so I’d appreciate it if everyone could back off a little and give him some space.”

  “I’m his father,” Mr. Rosewood said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said the doctor. “I’m Dr. Ahwadi, and I’m one of the emergency medicine fellows. You’re welcome to stay here while I’m talking with your son, but I need you to stand back a little ways for right now.”

  “How is he?” Mr. Rosewood asked.

  “That’s what I need to try and figure out,” said Dr. Ahwadi. He had a round face and big dark eyes, and he didn’t look all that much older than Danny to me, except that he had a very small, very neat black beard, and I was sure he had grown it to make himself look more mature.

  Mr. Rosewood stepped back to the next bed over, and my father and I went with him. I could see that my father was considering making some statement, “Hi, I’m the big boss, don’t take any notice of me,” that kind of thing, so I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Dad, thanks so much f
or driving me here. I’ll be fine if you need to get going.”

  “Well, actually,” my father said, “I was thinking of stopping by my office.”

  Which was no surprise. My dad is always thinking about his office on the weekend. Any time you drive past the hospital with him, there’s a risk he’ll want to go in and check something or find something or just sit down and do some work. It used to make my mom crazy that he would go out to play tennis or do some shopping at the electronics store and then, somehow, mysteriously, he would end up in his office for the whole day. They used to fight about it, but lately she’s just as likely to be out working herself, which could be either a good thing or a bad thing, I suppose.

  Anyway, I was relieved to see my dad head off to his office. I stayed there, standing next to Mr. Rosewood, and took out my notebook and started taking notes.

  “Tell me what you remember,” Dr. Ahwadi was saying to Danny. “Tell me what happened.”

  “The Monster,” Danny said. “There’s this guy they call the Monster. He was almost beating us, and we had to win this one. And I got hit. In the game.”

  “And what happened after you were hit?”

  There was a short silence. Then Danny said, “Can you take this thing off my neck? Can’t I sit up?”

  “Not right now,” the doctor said. “We’re probably going to need to take an X-ray of your spine before we let you up off that board. But that’s part of what I’m trying to figure out right now. Look, Danny, can you tell me what day it is today?”

  “It’s Friday,” Danny said, though I didn’t think he sounded too sure.

  “And where were you playing?”

  “What?”

  “Which field were you at?” the doctor asked.

  “We were at Sand River,” Danny said, sounding kind of confused. “I told you, the Monster of Sand River!”

  “Okay,” the doctor said. He looked over at us, at Danny’s father and me, like he needed us to confirm that, and we both nodded.

  “And do you know where you are right now?” he went on.

  “I’m at the hospital,” Danny said. But again, he didn’t quite say it like he meant it, more like he was trying it on for size.

  “Danny, do you know who the president is?” the doctor asked.

  “The president of what?” Danny asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’m trying to get a sense of whether you’re feeling a little confused,” Dr. Ahwadi told him. He took a little light and started shining it in Danny’s eyes, first the left side, then the right. “That’s one way we can figure out how badly you got hit in the head, so we know how to take care of you.” He paused. “Keep moving your eyes so you follow my light, please.”

  We all waited while he moved the light, left, right, up down. Then he turned it off, and Danny closed his eyes for a few seconds. With his eyes still closed, he said, “I’m going to be okay to keep playing, aren’t I?”

  The doctor tried to make a joke out of it. “Well, not today,” he said. “But I gather the game is over, anyway.”

  “No, really,” Danny said, and his voice, I thought, was just a little thicker than it should have been. “You aren’t thinking that I’m going to have to miss any games, are you?”

  “Daniel, if you could just answer my questions,” said Dr. Ahwadi. At the same moment, his father called out, “Hey, Danny boy, let’s just make sure you’re okay! First things first!”

  “They’ll be taking your son to X-ray in just a few minutes,” the doctor said. “And as far as we can tell, there’s no evidence of anything that would make us worry about his neck—his sensory and motor exams seem okay—but that was a major impact, and we just need to clear his spine.”

  “Yes, sure, thank you,” said Mr. Rosewood, and I thought again about him being a cop and probably knowing all the things that can happen to boys in car crashes and other accidents.

  “I’d just like to ask again about what he remembers from the actual impact,” Dr. Ahwadi went on. “The report I got was that he lost consciousness for a period of perhaps two to three minutes.”

  “I didn’t!” Danny said loudly. “I never lost consciousness!”

  I thought about that time when we were all watching Danny lying cold as stone on the football field. About how there was time to think about what it would mean if he didn’t start moving again, and time to look around the crowd, like maybe someone else knew what to do, and time to pray. You could have told me it was one minute or ten minutes, and I don’t know that I could disprove it, but there had definitely been some time there when it seemed like Danny Rosewood had left the stadium.

  “Hey, Danny,” his dad said, “don’t get excited. We’re just trying to get you taken care of.”

  “Do you remember the impact?” the doctor asked. “Do you remember exactly what happened?”

  “Yes, of course I do,” Danny said. “I caught the pass. Game was almost over. And then I got hit.”

  “How did you get hit?”

  “Their cornerback. Big guy named Schultz,” Danny said, and I had the weirdest feeling.

  “And then?”

  “I guess I had everybody scared,” Danny said. “I mean, I went down. I had all the air knocked out of me, you know how that is? I just lay there for a couple of minutes, I guess, before I felt like I could really talk.”

  “Did everything go dark?”

  “Hell, no,” Danny said. “I could hear everyone talking, and the coach—and I guess Dr. Anderson. I mean, I wasn’t out of it or anything.”

  “Did you see any flashing lights? Any stars?”

  “I just kept my eyes closed and tried to get my breath back, like I said.”

  “And when you opened your eyes?”

  “Everything looked normal,” Danny said. “Everything was fine, except now I’m strapped down here with this collar thing around my neck.”

  A nurse came hurrying up to the bed. “Radiology is ready,” she said.

  “Let’s get your spine cleared,” the doctor said. “Then we’ll be able to let you sit up, and we can go over it all in a little more detail.”

  He unlocked the brake on the wheels, and the two of them, the doctor and the nurse, began to roll the bed away. Mr. Rosewood took a step like he was going to follow, and the doctor told him to wait, they would be right back.

  After they had gone, I thought of asking Mr. Rosewood, “Did that make sense to you? Do you believe that Danny never lost consciousness? Do you believe he remembers everything?” I had a strong feeling that it was the question he really didn’t want me to ask, though. Sometimes, you know, having that feeling when I’m interviewing someone makes me really eager to ask that question—whatever it is—that I think the other person doesn’t want to talk about. Like I can tell that here’s where I’m going to find my most important information. But I didn’t feel like doing that with Mr. Rosewood. Instead, I felt like he had had about all that he could take. I couldn’t even imagine what he had been feeling during that time that Danny wasn’t moving or talking or opening his eyes, and I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling right now.

  Dr. Ahwadi came back. “It’ll be about fifteen minutes for the spine films,” he said. “And when he comes back, I’m going to get him set up in that room over there. I’m going to need to examine him, once he’s off the backboard, and I’ll need to take him through what happened one more time. So maybe you guys want to have a seat in the waiting room?”

  “Can’t I stay in the room?” Mr. Rosewood asked.

  “Well, maybe one family member,” said the doctor, “but I think that’s it.”

  “I’m going to get going, anyway,” I said. I had already closed my notebook. I mean, I hadn’t lied to anyone or anything. I had told Danny straight up that I wanted a quote for the Kourier, but still, I didn’t feel comfortable. I told myself that it was because I didn’t really belong there. It was a private thing, getting examined, and of course that’s true. But it’s also true that I didn’t
want to hear what Danny was going to say next time around.

  So instead, I went and found my dad’s office. The executive suite was dark because it was after hours, but he was busy on his computer, and I had to wait almost twenty minutes till he was ready to go.

  “So how’s Rosewood?” he asked me as we were walking out to his parking space.

  “Okay, I guess,” I said.

  We drove home, and I got on my laptop and pulled up some of my research notes for the second installment of my athletes and injuries series. I just couldn’t stop feeling weird about what had happened in the emergency room. About how I had fed Danny some information about the game, and he had used it to convince the doctor that he remembered everything. Amnesia around the actual accident is a key sign of concussion. So is losing consciousness, of course. And Danny didn’t want to admit any of that, and I knew why.

  I sat on my bed, looking at research studies about the brain on my computer screen, thinking about Danny, thinking about my story. Thinking about how much it meant to the whole team that they made it to the state championships. To the whole town.

  The next afternoon, after my last class, I headed for the Kourier office. I was supposed to meet Sophie there; we had an appointment to look at brain story graphics. But instead, when I got to the office, Ms. Edison told me that the principal wanted to see me. And she gave me this look, which I interpreted as “What have you done now, Carla?” But I didn’t know the answer.

  So I went to Mr. Bamburger’s office. And Mr. Bamburger cut pretty much right to the chase: “Nice article on knee problems and elbow problems,” he said. “But I think you should hold off on part two.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “My spies tell me,” said Mr. Bamburger, “that you’re working on a story about head trauma and football.”

  Amazing what a spy network that man has. Why, one of his agents must have read the line at the end of part one in the school paper that said that part two was coming up soon.

  “I am,” I said. “It’s a hot topic right now.”