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Faith, family - and the fight of his life
USD kicker and Brandon Valley grad Sawyer bounces back from scary ski accident
By By Mick Garry
Argus Leader Media
Argus Leader Media
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EmailFebruary 05. 2010 6:00AM
In a series of dramatic and heartening steps, the Sam Sawyer everyone knew has returned to the world.
A kicker on the University of South Dakota football team, the Brandon Valley graduate went snowboarding in the Black Hills with buddies over the holiday break and almost didn't come back.
He left a trail at Terry Peak Ski Resort, hit a tree and woke up in a hospital eight days later. He didn't know why he was there or what had happened in the meantime.
Plenty had happened in the meantime, he would gradually learn.
"I looked around and I thought I was in some random house," Sawyer said as he waited to leave Sanford Hospital, 20 days after he'd been airlifted in critical condition from Deadwood to Rapid City Regional Hospital with a severe brain injury.
"I remember being at the cabin, and I remember having lunch that day - that's it. Then I woke up in a hospital room. All I could think of is that I wanted to get out of there and go back to school."
The mysteries of brain injuries offer a perplexing set of uncertainties to the parents who sit by the bed and wait for their kid to wake up. Merlin and Leann Sawyer did that waiting fueled by family, friends and what they now maintain were the bulldozer-strong prayers of thousands.
"Yes, we think it was a miracle," Leann Sawyer said. "For Sam to recover this quickly from injuries that severe, to have motion in his limbs, to have his personality back - that is nothing short of a miracle."
Merlin Sawyer says the presence of mind of Sawyer's friends - Jimmy Broomfield, Andrew Nelson and Dewey Duimstra - are the first reason his son is still alive.
"They might not think that, but I do," Merlin said. "They found him, they didn't move him, and they got him help very quickly. You hear a lot of negative things about kids these days, but those guys did everything right that day."
Scare on the hill
Nelson, Broomfield and Sam took off down a hill at Terry Peak, with Nelson and Sam getting out ahead of Broomfield. Nelson got to the end and waited. Broomfield followed. Sam did not.
"On my way down behind those guys, I saw somebody down over by the trees," Broomfield said. "I figured someone had just fallen down over there and was going to get back up. I didn't think a whole lot about it."
As they got closer to the fallen skier, they knew it was Sam. They summoned the ski patrol immediately, then yelled Sam's name as they got up next to him.
"He mumbled something," Nelson said. "It was gibberish. Then he went unconscious. We could see he had a pretty good-sized bump on his head, so we didn't move him."
Minutes later, they were helping patrols load Sam on a toboggan. An ambulance was waiting by the time they reached the bottom of the hill.
"When we saw the way the patrols were working on him, we knew it was pretty serious," Broomfield said. "It started to set in then that he might be pretty hurt. That's when it got scary."
Fighting for life
Calling everyone they could in effort to get word to Sam's family, the three drove to the Deadwood hospital minutes behind the ambulance. When they got there he was already gone - on his way to Rapid City in the air.
Everything after that was pretty much up to the medical staff at Rapid City Regional and Sam. Neurosurgeons told Merlin and Leann that a firm prognosis was not possible, but that Sam's biggest ally in this battle was going to be his youth.
A family that includes younger brother Ethan - an accomplished kicker in his own right who is going into fall camp with the South Dakota State football team next fall as a freshman - and older sister Michelle all made their way to Rapid City to take turns on a bedside vigil, along with many other members of Merlin and Leann's extended families.
"One of the neurosurgeons was walking us through what was going on," Merlin said. "He looked at me and he said, 'If this happened to you or me, we'd be dead. He's not, because he's young.' That's when I knew it was serious."
Keeping the faith
Reports on the family's CaringBridge journal never went over to the dark side. Daily entries, even when Sam's problems were critical, remained optimistic. And then on the night of Thursday, Jan. 14, Leann ended a journal entry with this sentence: "I have a good feeling about tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed."
A little while later that night, Merlin asked his as-yet-unresponsive son to give him a thumbs-up.
And then they watched Sam's thumb move.
"Many of you had that great feeling of joy when you have experienced the birth of your children," Leann wrote in Friday morning's journal entry. "We experienced that feeling once again last evening ..."
He was waking up. On Friday afternoon, Ethan decided to "step it up a bit" by requesting that Sam flip him off. And then the bird flew, symbolically and literally.
"I don't remember it, but I would say it must have been a natural reaction to my antagonistic brother," Sam said, laughing. "I've heard the story a few times since then."
Sawyer's improvement has been steady ever since. He was moved to Sanford in Sioux Falls on Friday, Jan. 22, and has been rehabbing his lower left leg, showing dramatic improvement in both body and mind at a pace that has surprised doctors.
Answered prayers
Leann, a nurse, knew things about the severity of her son's situation that she never repeated aloud. She'd seen injuries like her son's before and knew they don't all have happy endings.
When they returned to Sioux Falls, a physician's assistant brought them Sam's latest CT scan results. They showed the bleeding and swelling was way down from where it was. He verbalized some of the things Leann had been holding back.
"He told us he'd compared the new CAT scans to the first ones taken in Rapid City," Leann said. "He said that 90 percent of people with brain injuries that bad don't wake up."
Understandably, then, when you hear Merlin and Leann talk about their miracle, you listen. Members of Risen Savior Catholic Church in Brandon, they attribute their son's recovery to the collective force of faith and the prayers of both friends and strangers.
As proof, they offer a son who is now alert, strong and standing tall. Second-hand, he's heard his own story. And he's a believer, too.
"You realize you have to take every day for what it's worth," Sam said. "I am convinced all the prayers people said for me had something to do with this."
A kicker on the University of South Dakota football team, the Brandon Valley graduate went snowboarding in the Black Hills with buddies over the holiday break and almost didn't come back.
He left a trail at Terry Peak Ski Resort, hit a tree and woke up in a hospital eight days later. He didn't know why he was there or what had happened in the meantime.
Plenty had happened in the meantime, he would gradually learn.
"I looked around and I thought I was in some random house," Sawyer said as he waited to leave Sanford Hospital, 20 days after he'd been airlifted in critical condition from Deadwood to Rapid City Regional Hospital with a severe brain injury.
"I remember being at the cabin, and I remember having lunch that day - that's it. Then I woke up in a hospital room. All I could think of is that I wanted to get out of there and go back to school."
The mysteries of brain injuries offer a perplexing set of uncertainties to the parents who sit by the bed and wait for their kid to wake up. Merlin and Leann Sawyer did that waiting fueled by family, friends and what they now maintain were the bulldozer-strong prayers of thousands.
"Yes, we think it was a miracle," Leann Sawyer said. "For Sam to recover this quickly from injuries that severe, to have motion in his limbs, to have his personality back - that is nothing short of a miracle."
Merlin Sawyer says the presence of mind of Sawyer's friends - Jimmy Broomfield, Andrew Nelson and Dewey Duimstra - are the first reason his son is still alive.
"They might not think that, but I do," Merlin said. "They found him, they didn't move him, and they got him help very quickly. You hear a lot of negative things about kids these days, but those guys did everything right that day."
Scare on the hill
Nelson, Broomfield and Sam took off down a hill at Terry Peak, with Nelson and Sam getting out ahead of Broomfield. Nelson got to the end and waited. Broomfield followed. Sam did not.
"On my way down behind those guys, I saw somebody down over by the trees," Broomfield said. "I figured someone had just fallen down over there and was going to get back up. I didn't think a whole lot about it."
As they got closer to the fallen skier, they knew it was Sam. They summoned the ski patrol immediately, then yelled Sam's name as they got up next to him.
"He mumbled something," Nelson said. "It was gibberish. Then he went unconscious. We could see he had a pretty good-sized bump on his head, so we didn't move him."
Minutes later, they were helping patrols load Sam on a toboggan. An ambulance was waiting by the time they reached the bottom of the hill.
"When we saw the way the patrols were working on him, we knew it was pretty serious," Broomfield said. "It started to set in then that he might be pretty hurt. That's when it got scary."
Fighting for life
Calling everyone they could in effort to get word to Sam's family, the three drove to the Deadwood hospital minutes behind the ambulance. When they got there he was already gone - on his way to Rapid City in the air.
Everything after that was pretty much up to the medical staff at Rapid City Regional and Sam. Neurosurgeons told Merlin and Leann that a firm prognosis was not possible, but that Sam's biggest ally in this battle was going to be his youth.
A family that includes younger brother Ethan - an accomplished kicker in his own right who is going into fall camp with the South Dakota State football team next fall as a freshman - and older sister Michelle all made their way to Rapid City to take turns on a bedside vigil, along with many other members of Merlin and Leann's extended families.
"One of the neurosurgeons was walking us through what was going on," Merlin said. "He looked at me and he said, 'If this happened to you or me, we'd be dead. He's not, because he's young.' That's when I knew it was serious."
Keeping the faith
Reports on the family's CaringBridge journal never went over to the dark side. Daily entries, even when Sam's problems were critical, remained optimistic. And then on the night of Thursday, Jan. 14, Leann ended a journal entry with this sentence: "I have a good feeling about tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed."
A little while later that night, Merlin asked his as-yet-unresponsive son to give him a thumbs-up.
And then they watched Sam's thumb move.
"Many of you had that great feeling of joy when you have experienced the birth of your children," Leann wrote in Friday morning's journal entry. "We experienced that feeling once again last evening ..."
He was waking up. On Friday afternoon, Ethan decided to "step it up a bit" by requesting that Sam flip him off. And then the bird flew, symbolically and literally.
"I don't remember it, but I would say it must have been a natural reaction to my antagonistic brother," Sam said, laughing. "I've heard the story a few times since then."
Sawyer's improvement has been steady ever since. He was moved to Sanford in Sioux Falls on Friday, Jan. 22, and has been rehabbing his lower left leg, showing dramatic improvement in both body and mind at a pace that has surprised doctors.
Answered prayers
Leann, a nurse, knew things about the severity of her son's situation that she never repeated aloud. She'd seen injuries like her son's before and knew they don't all have happy endings.
When they returned to Sioux Falls, a physician's assistant brought them Sam's latest CT scan results. They showed the bleeding and swelling was way down from where it was. He verbalized some of the things Leann had been holding back.
"He told us he'd compared the new CAT scans to the first ones taken in Rapid City," Leann said. "He said that 90 percent of people with brain injuries that bad don't wake up."
Understandably, then, when you hear Merlin and Leann talk about their miracle, you listen. Members of Risen Savior Catholic Church in Brandon, they attribute their son's recovery to the collective force of faith and the prayers of both friends and strangers.
As proof, they offer a son who is now alert, strong and standing tall. Second-hand, he's heard his own story. And he's a believer, too.
"You realize you have to take every day for what it's worth," Sam said. "I am convinced all the prayers people said for me had something to do with this."
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Sam Saywer is now recuperating in Brandon from his injuries sustained in a January skiing accident in the Black Hills. Submitted photo |  |
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