Students Unite to Raise Funds for Classmate’s Medical Bills

Ofer Katzin should be having a great senior year--applying for college, playing tennis and competing on the school’s academic decathlon team, his classmates and teachers at El Camino Real High School said Monday.

Instead, Katzin, 17--described as smart and funny--has been in a coma for the past 6 months. Battling brain injuries suffered in a car crash, he has occasionally uttered a handful of words, his doctor said.

“To put it in layman’s terms, he’s in the Twilight Zone,” said Katherine Galos, who has been Katzin’s physician since he was 4. “It’s very difficult to predict what his potential is or how much of a recovery he will make.”

Katzin’s classmates at the Woodland Hills school can do nothing to speed his physical recovery. But in an effort to aid his family, they have initiated a fund-raising drive to help pay medical costs not covered by insurance. On Wednesday, the boy’s insurance coverage for the year will be exhausted, said Ofer’s father, Nissim Katzin.

$8,000 Goal

Senior class and student body officers are hoping to raise $8,000, the amount needed by the family to pay for Ofer’s care at the Casa Colina rehabilitation center in Lomita through Dec. 31, said Paul Geller, senior class president. Proceeds from a dance last week earned about $500, and another $500 was collected Monday from the school’s homeroom classes.

For the rest of the week, students will raise money by selling yogurt and mistletoe. They will also pledge money for each mile run by members of the cross-country team in a 24-hour relay Friday afternoon.

“It’s beautiful what the students are doing because one day Ofer will be able to say, ‘Thank you,’ ” Nissim Katzin said. “They are not in school just to learn math and English, but to learn lessons in love and caring.”

Other Fund Raisers

Community-service fund raising is nothing new for El Camino Real students. In October, they donated $3,600 to the United Way. Last week, the student body raised more than $2,500 to buy a Christmas toy for each of 166 children served by the nonprofit Mand Booth Center in North Hollywood.

“They’re a generous bunch,” Principal Martin King said.

But unlike those fund raisers, the drive to help raise money for Katzin strikes closer to home, said Larry Segal, student body president. “It’s a big deal to people in this community; this has a personal connection.”

Teacher Mark Johnson said Ofer was one of the hardest workers in his advanced-placement history class last year. Students take the class to prepare for a test for college credit in history. “He was popular and very bright,” Johnson said.

In fact, it was June 5, a week after the test, when Katzin--driving with two friends--lost control of his car on Box Canyon Road and the vehicle went over an embankment. His friends recovered from minor injuries.

“I got the results back from the AP test,” Johnson said in the faculty lunchroom Monday. “He got a 4. He passed it.”