Greeks Rally to Aid Injured Countryman

On Feb. 12, an accident 15 miles off the coast of Rosarito, Mexico, abruptly canceled the livelihood of Adonios Zabetakis, Greek sailor.

A little after 9 in the morning, a cable on the deck of the ship he was on snapped and fractured his spine. When he came to, Zabetakis, who spoke no English, found himself in UC San Diego Medical Center, paralyzed from the waist down and more than 7,400 miles from his home near Athens.

On Feb. 28, Zabetakis was transferred to the San Diego Rehabilitation Institute for physical and occupational therapy and what promised to be an indefinite stay. Because no one on the staff spoke Greek, UCSD officials contacted Father Costas Constantine, pastor of the St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church on Park Boulevard in Hillcrest.

Surrogate Loved Ones

The St. Spyridon congregation was suddenly asked to play a role it had never played before, for anyone. Members of the 600-plus congregation would become not only the interpreters for a 25-year-old man estranged from family and friends, but also his unofficial support group and surrogate loved ones.

Over several weeks, they would provide hugs, prayers, even songs and spanokopita . In the end, they would be blamed--benignly--for fattening this tough sailor and credited for aiding what doctors call an astonishing recovery.

Zabetakis says is he much happier than he was. He sits in a wheelchair in his room in the institute, on the sixth floor of Alvarado Medical Center in East San Diego. He can’t converse without an interpreter, but Elias Katsoulas, a 56-year-old retired engineer and native of Greece, is almost always by his side.

It is Katsoulas who is there when Zabetakis jokes about the women in Brazil, the 20 pounds he has gained in three months (he’s now on a no- baklava diet) and the sea he left behind all too involuntarily.

Zabetakis, who is from Elefsis, Greece, had been a sailor on an oil tanker since 1984. As an employee of the Levanos Shipping Co., he had circled the globe repeatedly, docking in Poland, England, Spain, Venezuela and other ports.

He had no idea that he would ever be confined to a bed, much less a wheelchair, chatting for hours with Katsoulas, who volunteered for the assignment at the suggestion of Father Constantine.

Zabetakis says he can’t thank Katsoulas and company enough.

He gained weight because they brought him food. He learned some English because they insisted he do so.

They have enhanced his mood and prognosis by, in his view, motivating and applauding his progress. By giving him love, he says, they’ve given him hope when life felt hopeless and made a horror seem survivable.

“When I first arrived here, I had very bad feelings,” he said through Katsoulas. “I cannot describe it. It’s fortunate that, if the accident had to happen, it happened so close to a place like this, where I could have a better chance for recovery.

“My visitors, they remind me of home. I am very much obliged to them, and I always will be. I could not have made it without them.”

Outlook Was Grim

Dr. Martha Minteer is medical director of the San Diego Rehabilitation Institute and the physician supervising Zabetakis’ care. She said his injuries to the upper thoracic spine, including six broken ribs, were so severe that the prognosis pointed to a lingering and almost-complete paralysis.

“He had no motor ability from the third vertebra down,” she said. “He could move his fingers and his hands, but he had no feeling below the waist. The prognosis was very poor.”

Minteer said that Zabetakis first experienced movement on his right side, in his hip and quadriceps, then the toes. Where it used to take two nurses to help him stand, he can now rise from his wheelchair with the minimal aid of one person.

Will he walk again?

“At first we didn’t think so, but now we believe he will, with the aid of braces or crutches,” Minteer said.

She said members of the local Greek community have been invaluable. The reasons for a patient’s unexpected recovery are many and mysterious, but, she said, there’s no question that at a time of great psychological peril, they came to his rescue in a way English-speaking doctors and nurses never could.

Minteer wishes Zabetakis could remain in San Diego, which she feels would be a better, safer place for someone coping with wheelchairs and braces and the commitment to a new way of life.

After several months of outpatient care following his release from the institute, which is imminent, Zabetakis wants to return to Greece, because, as he says, “Greece is everything.”