Beech’s Remarkable Recovery : UCLA Redshirt Is Progressing After Life-Threatening Fall

It was one of those phone calls you hope you’ll never get. It shattered the soundness of sleep, about 1:20 on the morning of April 18. Annerose Beech picked up the receiver, expecting the worst.

She couldn’t help envisioning a car accident involving her 19-year-old son, Mike. She was half right--it was an accident.

Mike, a redshirt freshman football player at UCLA, had fallen from a balcony at a fraternity party and had been taken to UCLA Medical Center.

There were no other facts available.

Dennis and Annerose Beech left their Newport Beach home and headed for Westwood.

There, the news was worse.

Their son’s fall was short--only 12 feet--but damaging enough to leave him in critical condition. He had landed on his forehead, breaking his nose and skull while suffering multiple facial fractures and brain bruises.

Mike Beech was taken into surgery at 4 a.m. and was there for the next 14 hours.

Leaking from the operating room were horror stories about neurological surgeons having to pick frayed pieces of bone from his brain. Doctors sat the Beeches down and prepared them for a life with a son who, if he lived, might be blind or brain-damaged.

That was two weeks ago.

The Beeches can only describe what’s happened since as a miracle.

Doctors prefer not to use that terminology but still find the subject difficult to discuss without using superlatives.

“Basically, he is recovering in an unbelievable way,” said Dr. Burt Mandelbaum, the UCLA team physician who served as spokesman for the neurosurgical team that worked on Beech.

Yes, Mike Beech will live. But better than that, one day it might never be suspected that he’d ever taken a serious fall.

His memory is intact, save for an eight-hour period preceding the fall. Doctors say that’s normal for someone who has had a severe blow to the head. Because of the memory lapse, though, the questions surrounding his fall may never be answered.

Beech’s face is swollen, and he suffers some double vision in his left eye, but those conditions are not expected to be permanent.

Plastic surgeons reconstructed his face and nose, and little scarring is expected.

It’s all happened so fast for the Beeches that they aren’t sure how to react.

Their elation is tempered by reservation.

“As soon as he walks out the door, then I’ll be OK,” Annerose Beech said.

That day may come soon.

Mandelbaum, the Bruins’ team physician, is already preparing a rehabilitation program for Beech, whose muscular body--he was 6-6 and 250 pounds--has been substantially weakened by his hospital stay.

Two weeks ago, Beech’s bright football career wasn’t even an issue.

But now, doctors are saying he may be able to play again.

“It’s a possibility,” Mandelbaum said. “But that’s the only thing we can say. He will have to have a full recovery. But I think there will be.”

What can’t be measured, of course, are the possible psychological barriers that await Beech.

Beech, a former All-Orange County and All-American lineman from Newport Harbor High School, is not ready to talk to reporters. His jaw was wired shut during surgery, and speaking is difficult. But his mother said he hasn’t even asked if he will play again. Forgive him if he’s had other things to worry about.

“It’s nothing short of unbelievable,” UCLA Coach Terry Donahue said of Beech’s recovery.

Donahue wouldn’t speculate on Beech’s football career, although he did say Beech would be on scholarship for as long as he remains at UCLA.

“I don’t know if (football) is out of the question but I think it’s too early to worry about that,” Donahue said. “Mike, his family and his doctors will have to make the decision about that later.”

The credit for Beech’s dramatic recovery can be shared by many.

For one, there was his proximity to the UCLA Medical Center at the time of the accident. Beech was injured when he fell over a second-story railing at a Little Sisters party at the house of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity, located on the corner of Gayley and Strathmore--just west of the UCLA campus.

“If this happens in the middle of the desert, then maybe it’s a different story,” Beech’s father, Dennis, said.

Beech was in surgery within about three hours, in one of the nation’s most advanced hospitals.

Three separate teams of neurosurgeons, headed by Dr. Neil Martin, worked on Beech during the day.

“You have to stress the quality of physicians here,” Mandelbaum said. “All the people did a superb job. We’re happy that he turned the corner. Everything went just the way you want.

“Sometimes (in surgery) the brain pressure may go way up. But he had only one little episode. It was a very nice progression. Everything went ideally.”

So many doctors were involved that the Beeches still aren’t sure whom to thank.

Also benefiting Beech was his age, 19.

“There’s something about a child’s brain that is different than an adult,” Mandelbaum said. “It’s more resilient and flexible. You or I would not have that same neurological reaction.”

Also, there were some intangibles involved.

Doctors told the Beeches that there was no telling how long their son would remain unconscious after 14 hours of surgery. Doctors certainly didn’t expect him to awaken as soon as he did.

“He woke up in six hours,” Dennis Beech said. “That was a miracle in itself. And when he woke up, he remembered everything--the names of people. But he didn’t remember anything about the accident or anything before it.”

With his face so badly injured, the Beeches expected the worst in their son’s appearance.

“I expected scars and scratches above the forehead,” Dennis Beech said. “But all he really had were swollen eyelids. They looked like little frog eyes. It’s amazing what they did. The doctors said they had to guess at his nose because they didn’t know what it looked like.”

Beech has a scar that runs from the top of one ear to the other. But the scar runs over the top of his head and will not be noticeable when his hair grows back.

He has another tiny scar in the middle of his forehead but that should fade.

His mother said his nose looks better than it did before.

Beech, when he awoke, didn’t know why he was in the hospital. Later, he asked his friend, David Keating: “How in the hell did I get in this mess?”

After Mike had regained some of his strength, the Beeches told him how the accident occurred. At least, they told him as much as they knew, which was little.

In the two weeks after the fall, the Beeches cared little of how or why their son was injured.

“The important thing was that Mike got well,” Annerose said. “All the reasons why it happened, well. . . . There were a lot of young people there. Sometimes, they act like they’re indestructible.”

An initial report released by UCLA indicated that Beech had been drinking but that the fall appeared to be a freak accident.

Beech is not a member of the fraternity, and it was a closed party. But Mark Towery, president of Beta Theta Pi, said certain non-members were allowed to attend, as long as they were on a guest list. Beech was on that list, Towery said.

Towery said Beech, not of legal drinking age, may have been drinking but was not drunk.

Towery also said there were so many unresolved questions because very few people actually saw Beech fall.

Towery said several people were dancing, but most of them cleared the floor between numbers. He said Beech went the opposite way, to the balcony.

“There’s a doorway and a wall blocking the view to the balcony,” Towery said. “All the witnesses agree that there was no one even close to him. And I can’t think of a more congenial guy than Mike, so there’s no reason to think he was in a fight or anything.”

The widely accepted story was that Beech was dancing on the balcony and fell over the railing. The railing, Towery pointed out, was considerably lower for the 6-6 Beech.

Watch Commander Eugene Christensen of UCLA’s campus police said only a medical report of the incident was filed, which meant there wasn’t evidence to suggest either a crime or negligence.

The UCLA student relations department, which interacts with the fraternities, also investigated and reached the same conclusion.

“We have no evidence to suggest that there was foul play or any wrongdoing,” said Peter Weiler, associate dean of students. “The balcony didn’t break, and no one pushed him. There was no scuffle. To the best of our knowledge, that’s it.”

Weiler, though, said the incident, which involved a 19-year-old who was drinking and injured at a UCLA fraternity party, concerned him.

“The problem is that this was not a university event,” he said.

He said the school itself does not have much control over fraternities, which are located off campus and are governed by national chapters.

But in response to fraternity incidents in the past, Weiler said a resolution has been drafted and is awaiting approval by UCLA Chancellor Charles Young.

The resolution will establish some university safety and health guidelines for the fraternities. If these guidelines are not followed, the university can refuse to recognize the fraternity, thereby prohibiting it from participating in on-campus events.

Weiler said he hopes such action will also pressure the fraternities’ national chapters to take action.

“The removal of a charter usually means the end of the fraternity,” Weiler said.

Weiler said he expects the resolution to go into effect next fall.

Beta Theta Pi, the fraternity that had the party at which Beech was injured, has had its share of trouble in the past. Its charter was suspended for a year in 1981, and last year, the chapter was put on minor probation after some students had picketed the fraternity for holding a Mexican theme party, which they deemed denigrating.

Weiler, though, said he has a good working relationship with Beta Theta Pi.

“It’s a good chapter,” he said. “It’s had its problems, but a lot of them do.”

Luckily for all, the Mike Beech story will probably end happily, not tragically.