Prep Friday : Division VI Football Championships : Roskelly’s Accident Gives Him New Perspective

Randy Roskelly of Valencia High School has been preparing for a football game all week.

The key word there is game .

It’s an important game, to be sure. Valencia (12-0-1) plays Corona del Mar (11-0-2) tonight at Orange Coast College for the Southern Section Division VI championship.

But how important depends on what you compare it with.

“Before this summer I would have said football was life or death for me,” said Roskelly, a starting running back/defensive back. “Now, it’s a game.”

Roskelly, a senior, was nearly killed last summer in a boating accident, which cause head, foot and arm injuries. He returned to the Tigers’ starting lineup just 6 weeks later, but with a little perspective.

“I’m just glad to be alive,” Roskelly said.

Last summer, football was still paramount to Roskelly. Already a veteran of two Southern Section championship games, he was looking forward to his senior season and possibly a second consecutive Division VI title.

On Aug. 11, the Roskellys and three other families arrived at Lake Mojave, Nev., for a little relaxation and a lot of water skiing. A final vacation before Roskelly began football practice the following week.

“We had just got there and I wanted to go skiing,” said Roskelly, an avid water skier since age 11. “But everyone else wanted to ride on the inner tube.”

Roskelly relented. There was plenty of time to ski.

Although he had never tried it before, Roskelly enjoyed being pulled along behind the boat on the inner tube. It was fun.

Then . . .

“We made a turn and the driver had to punch it to get the boat going,” he said. “I went out on the whip.”

That’s the last clear memory Roskelly has about Aug. 11. The surge of the boat pulled the inner tube too fast and Roskelly was thrown free and landed on his head on rocks near the shoreline.

Dave Carroll, a family friend who was driving the boat, was the first to reach Roskelly and pulled him into the boat.

“They told me I wasn’t breathing and my jaw was locked,” Roskelly said. “Dave forced my jaw open and all the water and stuff ran out.”

Mike and Laura Roskelly, Randy’s parents, saw the accident from the beach and rushed over in a second boat.

“By the time we got there, Randy was breathing,” said Mike Roskelly. “But he was barely conscious. He was in unbelievable pain.”

Mike Roskelly sent two friends ahead in the second boat to call an ambulance. He and Randy’s younger brother, Ryan, stayed.

Roskelly’s head was gashed in several places, his right foot badly cut and, although they wouldn’t know it for another 3 days, his right elbow was broken in two places.

Mike Roskelly wrapped Randy’s head in a towel and held it in his lap. Ryan, 14, did the same with his foot. Meanwhile, Carroll began driving back to shore.

“I was literally holding Randy’s head together, it was that bad,” Mike Roskelly said. “His foot was just hanging there, you could see the arteries. His brother held that together. It looked like he had been dropped from an airplane onto the rocks.

“I kept telling him, ‘Keep your eyes open, stay awake.’ That’s the only thing I knew.”

Fearing that Roskelly might have suffered a neck injury, Carroll drove slowly back to shore. It took 20 minutes, and by the time they reached the cove where they were camping an ambulance had arrived.

“The doctor told us later that most people would have bled to death before the ambulance arrived,” Mike Roskelly said. “But Randy’s blood coagulated fast, so he was still alive.”

At the hospital in Mojave, doctors wanted to take a brain scan, but they had trouble getting Roskelly, who was still conscious, to remain still for the test.

“They told us that if he didn’t calm down, they were going to have to put him under to take the brain scan,” Roskelly said. “That scared us. We thought he might never wake up. Right at the moment they were telling us this, Randy began calming down. It was a miracle.”

The brain scan showed no internal injuries to the head. However, it took 150 stitches to close the wounds in his head and another 40 in his foot.

“That’s the first clear thought I had,” Roskelly said. “I remember flying off the inner tube, and the next thing I recall is the doctor stitching me up. I knew right away it was bad.”

Roskelly stayed in the hospital 3 days. When he returned to his family’s home in Placentia, his right arm continued to hurt. He went to the doctor for X-rays, which revealed a broken elbow.

Two days later, Roskelly underwent surgery. A wire was placed in his arm to help the bone heal properly.

“My arm hurt, but I just thought it was from the I.V. they placed in my arm when I got to the hospital,” Roskelly said. “The arm was black and blue and I couldn’t bend it too far.”

Valencia Coach Mike Marrujo learned about the accident the following Monday. His first thought wasn’t that he had lost a running back.

“On something like that, you’re just happy the kid is going to be 100%,” Marrujo said. “You don’t care whether he’ll play again. You’re just happy he’s alive.”

Six weeks later, Roskelly was playing again.

He missed only 3 games before returning to the lineup. At first, his playing time was limited to defense, because Marrujo feared his arm might be reinjured while being tackled. But by the time Orange League play began, Roskelly was running with the football again.

“I was going to play again, it was just a matter of time,” Roskelly said. “It was really frustrating watching the team and not being able to help. But I knew I would be back.”

Yet, Roskelly has come back with a different outlook on the sport.

“Winning is still important, that’s one of the reasons you play,” he said. “But you get a little perspective going through something like that. You realize . . . “

. . . it’s a game?

“Yeah.”