Post by gatordog on Mar 28, 2011 9:42:53 GMT -5
Front page on the Tribune. What an amazing and miraculous story.
After losing leg, athlete is back in play
Wheaton Academy student: 'God is using the adversity in my life for good'
By Jim O'Donnell, Special to the Tribune
5:09 p.m. CDT, March 26, 2011
They have a young hero on the girls soccer team at Wheaton Academy, one who has known too much tragedy for a vibrant, athletic 17-year-old.
Her name is Lexi Youngberg.
She is a devout Christian whose faith in God's plans has been tested deep into overtime. She is an unyielding source of inspiration to the growing number who know her story.
That's why on a recent day at the west suburban high school, all of the gray and wind that a March afternoon could summon would not chill the joy in the gathered Wheaton faithful.
For the first time since helping the Warriors to a state championship in 2009, Youngberg was back on the field. Starting midfielder. No. 4.
Wheaton Academy beat Chicago Christian easily. But many people — including a crew from ESPN — kept watch on Youngberg.
That's because Youngberg was playing on a prosthetic leg.
She lost her left leg below the knee in a boating accident near her family's summer cottage in Michigan three months after the state championship. She almost died. A 15-year-old friend piloting her jet ski did.
That's why some tears.
That's why so many cheers.
That's why she received a standing ovation as the last Warrior introduced, and flowers after the game.
Still, cast by fate and unbridled determination into the spotlight, her primary wish remains somewhat elusive.
"All I want," Youngberg said, "is normal."
* * * *
Normal — comfy, stylish, upscale DuPage County normal — was once automatic in the Youngberg household.
Mark, the father, is a successful businessman with a law degree. Janice, the mother, amped down her career as a special education teacher to shepherd Lexi and sons Zach, 15, and Jake, 12.
"We have always been an active, athletic, pretty much overachieving family," Mark Youngberg said. "We want our kids to experience a lot and do a lot, and they do."
Central to the foundation is the family's deeply rooted Christian beliefs. The great earthly reward for the past 12 years has been summers at a cottage on Spring Lake, not far from Grand Haven, Mich.
"I'm from that area," Janice Youngberg said. "The cottage and the lake were always things we looked forward to each year."
In 2009, the Youngbergs delayed closing the cottage for the season until Labor Day weekend, two weeks after classes at Wheaton Academy had resumed.
Late Saturday afternoon, Lexi and two friends were on a Sea-Doo no more than a few hundred yards from the Youngberg's cottage.
"It was dinner time and Mark and I were slicing pizza," Frank Fernandes, a close friend, said. "The kids were out of sight just around the bend. Then Zach came hurtling up to us, barely able to speak. At first, we thought he was being funny. Then we realized something bad had happened."
* * * *
Something extraordinarily bad. A 27-foot MasterCraft powered by twin 350-horsepower inboard engines and driven by a 14-year-old boy, had veered over Lexi and her friends. The speed of the larger craft at the moment of impact was later estimated at close to 50 mph.
The scene Mark Youngberg and Frank Fernandes raced to was horrific. Robby Jerovsek, the driver of the jet ski, lay in the water dying. Lexi was floating face-down and unconscious, surrounded by an expanding plume of blood. Kaitlin VanDam, the third passenger, struggled to stay afloat.
Another boat nearby quickly pulled up and got Jerovsek and VanDam out of the water. Zach Youngberg spotted his sister floating away and yelled for someone to get to her.
Other boaters did. One rescuer — who had just completed a first-aid responder's course the day before — saw that Lexi's leg had been severed and applied a tourniquet.
Ambulances arrived. Lexi was taken to a hospital in Muskegon, 20 minutes away. Surgeons performed the first of nine operations she would undergo in 14 days.
With significant abdominal trauma and head injuries, her vital signs wouldn't stabilize.
"Late Sunday night, they told us they had to perform another surgery right then or Lexi might not make it," Mark Youngberg said. "They removed her gall bladder. The wait was awful."
The next day, the decision was made to transfer Lexi to the DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids.
"They were better equipped to handle what we were facing," Janice Youngberg said.
In those darkest hours, No. 4's long road back to the soccer field had begun.
* * * *
When she finally reached sustained consciousness, the first thing Lexi Youngberg wanted was access to Facebook.
"I had never been a huge fan of all the electronic stuff and online gadgetry the kids use today until I saw the effect the social networking had on Lexi in the hospital," Mark Youngberg said. "It was the first time I heard her laugh."
"I wanted to be back in touch with my friends," Lexi said. "I couldn't believe the number of messages I was getting. It was also then that I decided I had to start setting goals. And my biggest goal was to be back playing soccer."
The odds of that happening seemed minuscule, the hurdles enormous.
The initial response from Wheaton Academy provided a huge boost. School head Gene Frost and staff provided a blown-up photo of the entire student body — close to 630 students — praying for her recovery. Tutors and other assistance would also be made available.
After two weeks at DeVos, Lexi was transferred to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. There, basic physical therapy began. And the Youngbergs began to search for a prosthetist.
"We actually did it by committee," Mark Youngberg said. "Janice did research online. The person we settled on was remarkable."
* * * *
David Rotter is an associate with Scheck & Siress at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago. His clients have included Roger Ebert and Tammy Duckworth. He knew he had an unusually ambitious subject on his hands.
"From the initial conversation, it is essential to find out what a person's goals are with prosthetics," Rotter said. "Here I had a 15-year-old girl who had just gone through so much and she told me, among other things, she wanted to be able to return to wakeboarding, snow skiing and soccer."
Meeting the Youngbergs, Rotter sensed the teenager wasn't shooting for an unattainable goal.
"They are a goal-oriented family," Rotter said. "Lexi is a reflection of that. With a prosthetic leg, a fit that maximizes balance and endurance is key. So, we went to work."
So did Lexi. Remarkably, four weeks after the accident, she received a day pass from the Rehabilitation Institute to attend Wheaton Academy's homecoming football game. At halftime, the girls state championship soccer team was to receive title rings.
"My goal was to walk out on my new leg with the rest of the team," Lexi said. "Instead, because it was raining, I had to be driven to midfield in a golf cart."
She stood with her teammates for the ceremony. Two months later, after transferring to outpatient rehab at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton, she was skiing in Colorado on a prosthetic leg.
"Lexi is God's proof that 10 percent of life is what happens to you and 90 percent is how you handle it," Janice Youngberg said. "She was amazing us, especially because she was still plagued by chronic pain and unpredictable blistering on the surface of her leg."
Those problems continue.
* * * *
Since Youngberg's first prosthetic, Rotter has crafted four more legs for her.
"One is my sports leg, which is the one I use for soccer," Lexi said. "Then there's one for wakeboarding and skiing. There's the one my mom and I call my 'high heel' leg, for more formal occasions. And then there's my swimming leg."
Also yet to come is a "running" leg, since Youngberg has dead aim on participation in a paratriathlon and other adaptive-sports competitions.
Her initial return to the soccer sideline for the Warriors came last spring when all she could do was watch and cheer them on to a third-place finish in state.
She and her parents then found a private tutor — Drew DeGurian, a former standout soccer player at Bradley University — to begin the arduous task of getting her back into the game.
"She's a natural athlete and smart, which is great," DeGurian said. "On top of that, she has a clear realization of what she can and can't do, and her work ethic is off the charts."
"I know I'm not what I was as a soccer player," Youngberg said. "But I still think I can compete. I simply have to play smarter. And my right leg was always my dominant leg, so nothing's changed there."
Toward that end, she and coach Scott Marksberry have discussed strategies to lessen any limitations posed by the prosthetic leg. Marksberry said the Illinois High School Association has approved the use of her artificial limb.
"It's just smart, in-game things like angling an opponent with the ball to the sideline," Marksberry said. "Her teammates are schooled that when that sort of play is developing, to get over with help quickly to seal the attacker. That's just smart soccer."
* * * *
Any fears Mark and Janice Youngberg may have harbored about their daughter's return to soccer have been outweighed by the motivation it has given her and the inspiration her attitude gives to others.
"Lexi could have gone so many different ways after all of this," Janice Youngberg said. "She chose to use it as a platform from God to help and inspire others and to live a complete and full life."
Still, her father admits that as the season progresses, he retains some concern about the aggressiveness of more determined opponents.
"The idea is to play the game aggressively, but I know there will be times where she's going to get knocked down or involved in a hard tackle when I'll be concerned," he said. "But she knows the game and its risks. Her gifts and determination are there to glorify God."
Tucked behind the inspiration herself remains a 17-year-old girl still right on schedule to graduate later this spring.
Her future plans center on becoming a physical therapist. "I think that after all I've been through, I've seen how the people who have worked with me who have lost limbs have more sensitivity to the people they work with," Lexi said. "I really want to focus on younger people who are in the adaptive process."
* * * *
The night before the victory over Chicago Christian, in the living room of her home and with her parents at her side, Lexi recalled a moment that remains very special to her. It was a golf outing last fall to honor Todd Beamer (Wheaton Academy, Class of '87), one of the heroes of 9/11.
Lexi was the featured speaker. She told the audience of her relationship with God, which has served as the agent of equilibrium and forward momentum since that afternoon on Spring Lake.
"Knowing that God does not ever make mistakes, well, I know he didn't start messing up with me," Lexi said. ''So there must be a bigger story yet to be written."
She went on with a passage from Jeremiah 29:11, a sustaining thought she has repeated often since the new segment of her life began:
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'"
"God," she said, "is using the adversity in my life for good."
After losing leg, athlete is back in play
Wheaton Academy student: 'God is using the adversity in my life for good'
By Jim O'Donnell, Special to the Tribune
5:09 p.m. CDT, March 26, 2011
They have a young hero on the girls soccer team at Wheaton Academy, one who has known too much tragedy for a vibrant, athletic 17-year-old.
Her name is Lexi Youngberg.
She is a devout Christian whose faith in God's plans has been tested deep into overtime. She is an unyielding source of inspiration to the growing number who know her story.
That's why on a recent day at the west suburban high school, all of the gray and wind that a March afternoon could summon would not chill the joy in the gathered Wheaton faithful.
For the first time since helping the Warriors to a state championship in 2009, Youngberg was back on the field. Starting midfielder. No. 4.
Wheaton Academy beat Chicago Christian easily. But many people — including a crew from ESPN — kept watch on Youngberg.
That's because Youngberg was playing on a prosthetic leg.
She lost her left leg below the knee in a boating accident near her family's summer cottage in Michigan three months after the state championship. She almost died. A 15-year-old friend piloting her jet ski did.
That's why some tears.
That's why so many cheers.
That's why she received a standing ovation as the last Warrior introduced, and flowers after the game.
Still, cast by fate and unbridled determination into the spotlight, her primary wish remains somewhat elusive.
"All I want," Youngberg said, "is normal."
* * * *
Normal — comfy, stylish, upscale DuPage County normal — was once automatic in the Youngberg household.
Mark, the father, is a successful businessman with a law degree. Janice, the mother, amped down her career as a special education teacher to shepherd Lexi and sons Zach, 15, and Jake, 12.
"We have always been an active, athletic, pretty much overachieving family," Mark Youngberg said. "We want our kids to experience a lot and do a lot, and they do."
Central to the foundation is the family's deeply rooted Christian beliefs. The great earthly reward for the past 12 years has been summers at a cottage on Spring Lake, not far from Grand Haven, Mich.
"I'm from that area," Janice Youngberg said. "The cottage and the lake were always things we looked forward to each year."
In 2009, the Youngbergs delayed closing the cottage for the season until Labor Day weekend, two weeks after classes at Wheaton Academy had resumed.
Late Saturday afternoon, Lexi and two friends were on a Sea-Doo no more than a few hundred yards from the Youngberg's cottage.
"It was dinner time and Mark and I were slicing pizza," Frank Fernandes, a close friend, said. "The kids were out of sight just around the bend. Then Zach came hurtling up to us, barely able to speak. At first, we thought he was being funny. Then we realized something bad had happened."
* * * *
Something extraordinarily bad. A 27-foot MasterCraft powered by twin 350-horsepower inboard engines and driven by a 14-year-old boy, had veered over Lexi and her friends. The speed of the larger craft at the moment of impact was later estimated at close to 50 mph.
The scene Mark Youngberg and Frank Fernandes raced to was horrific. Robby Jerovsek, the driver of the jet ski, lay in the water dying. Lexi was floating face-down and unconscious, surrounded by an expanding plume of blood. Kaitlin VanDam, the third passenger, struggled to stay afloat.
Another boat nearby quickly pulled up and got Jerovsek and VanDam out of the water. Zach Youngberg spotted his sister floating away and yelled for someone to get to her.
Other boaters did. One rescuer — who had just completed a first-aid responder's course the day before — saw that Lexi's leg had been severed and applied a tourniquet.
Ambulances arrived. Lexi was taken to a hospital in Muskegon, 20 minutes away. Surgeons performed the first of nine operations she would undergo in 14 days.
With significant abdominal trauma and head injuries, her vital signs wouldn't stabilize.
"Late Sunday night, they told us they had to perform another surgery right then or Lexi might not make it," Mark Youngberg said. "They removed her gall bladder. The wait was awful."
The next day, the decision was made to transfer Lexi to the DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids.
"They were better equipped to handle what we were facing," Janice Youngberg said.
In those darkest hours, No. 4's long road back to the soccer field had begun.
* * * *
When she finally reached sustained consciousness, the first thing Lexi Youngberg wanted was access to Facebook.
"I had never been a huge fan of all the electronic stuff and online gadgetry the kids use today until I saw the effect the social networking had on Lexi in the hospital," Mark Youngberg said. "It was the first time I heard her laugh."
"I wanted to be back in touch with my friends," Lexi said. "I couldn't believe the number of messages I was getting. It was also then that I decided I had to start setting goals. And my biggest goal was to be back playing soccer."
The odds of that happening seemed minuscule, the hurdles enormous.
The initial response from Wheaton Academy provided a huge boost. School head Gene Frost and staff provided a blown-up photo of the entire student body — close to 630 students — praying for her recovery. Tutors and other assistance would also be made available.
After two weeks at DeVos, Lexi was transferred to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. There, basic physical therapy began. And the Youngbergs began to search for a prosthetist.
"We actually did it by committee," Mark Youngberg said. "Janice did research online. The person we settled on was remarkable."
* * * *
David Rotter is an associate with Scheck & Siress at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago. His clients have included Roger Ebert and Tammy Duckworth. He knew he had an unusually ambitious subject on his hands.
"From the initial conversation, it is essential to find out what a person's goals are with prosthetics," Rotter said. "Here I had a 15-year-old girl who had just gone through so much and she told me, among other things, she wanted to be able to return to wakeboarding, snow skiing and soccer."
Meeting the Youngbergs, Rotter sensed the teenager wasn't shooting for an unattainable goal.
"They are a goal-oriented family," Rotter said. "Lexi is a reflection of that. With a prosthetic leg, a fit that maximizes balance and endurance is key. So, we went to work."
So did Lexi. Remarkably, four weeks after the accident, she received a day pass from the Rehabilitation Institute to attend Wheaton Academy's homecoming football game. At halftime, the girls state championship soccer team was to receive title rings.
"My goal was to walk out on my new leg with the rest of the team," Lexi said. "Instead, because it was raining, I had to be driven to midfield in a golf cart."
She stood with her teammates for the ceremony. Two months later, after transferring to outpatient rehab at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton, she was skiing in Colorado on a prosthetic leg.
"Lexi is God's proof that 10 percent of life is what happens to you and 90 percent is how you handle it," Janice Youngberg said. "She was amazing us, especially because she was still plagued by chronic pain and unpredictable blistering on the surface of her leg."
Those problems continue.
* * * *
Since Youngberg's first prosthetic, Rotter has crafted four more legs for her.
"One is my sports leg, which is the one I use for soccer," Lexi said. "Then there's one for wakeboarding and skiing. There's the one my mom and I call my 'high heel' leg, for more formal occasions. And then there's my swimming leg."
Also yet to come is a "running" leg, since Youngberg has dead aim on participation in a paratriathlon and other adaptive-sports competitions.
Her initial return to the soccer sideline for the Warriors came last spring when all she could do was watch and cheer them on to a third-place finish in state.
She and her parents then found a private tutor — Drew DeGurian, a former standout soccer player at Bradley University — to begin the arduous task of getting her back into the game.
"She's a natural athlete and smart, which is great," DeGurian said. "On top of that, she has a clear realization of what she can and can't do, and her work ethic is off the charts."
"I know I'm not what I was as a soccer player," Youngberg said. "But I still think I can compete. I simply have to play smarter. And my right leg was always my dominant leg, so nothing's changed there."
Toward that end, she and coach Scott Marksberry have discussed strategies to lessen any limitations posed by the prosthetic leg. Marksberry said the Illinois High School Association has approved the use of her artificial limb.
"It's just smart, in-game things like angling an opponent with the ball to the sideline," Marksberry said. "Her teammates are schooled that when that sort of play is developing, to get over with help quickly to seal the attacker. That's just smart soccer."
* * * *
Any fears Mark and Janice Youngberg may have harbored about their daughter's return to soccer have been outweighed by the motivation it has given her and the inspiration her attitude gives to others.
"Lexi could have gone so many different ways after all of this," Janice Youngberg said. "She chose to use it as a platform from God to help and inspire others and to live a complete and full life."
Still, her father admits that as the season progresses, he retains some concern about the aggressiveness of more determined opponents.
"The idea is to play the game aggressively, but I know there will be times where she's going to get knocked down or involved in a hard tackle when I'll be concerned," he said. "But she knows the game and its risks. Her gifts and determination are there to glorify God."
Tucked behind the inspiration herself remains a 17-year-old girl still right on schedule to graduate later this spring.
Her future plans center on becoming a physical therapist. "I think that after all I've been through, I've seen how the people who have worked with me who have lost limbs have more sensitivity to the people they work with," Lexi said. "I really want to focus on younger people who are in the adaptive process."
* * * *
The night before the victory over Chicago Christian, in the living room of her home and with her parents at her side, Lexi recalled a moment that remains very special to her. It was a golf outing last fall to honor Todd Beamer (Wheaton Academy, Class of '87), one of the heroes of 9/11.
Lexi was the featured speaker. She told the audience of her relationship with God, which has served as the agent of equilibrium and forward momentum since that afternoon on Spring Lake.
"Knowing that God does not ever make mistakes, well, I know he didn't start messing up with me," Lexi said. ''So there must be a bigger story yet to be written."
She went on with a passage from Jeremiah 29:11, a sustaining thought she has repeated often since the new segment of her life began:
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'"
"God," she said, "is using the adversity in my life for good."