Down, Not Out

Except for a few hours once a week, Nick Enriquez is the epitome of an optimist.

He doesn’t look back and ask, ‘Why?’ Why a young man in the prime of life is facing a life of paralysis. Why a simple day at the beach turned into tragedy. Why he can’t walk. Why he can’t play football.

These would be normal questions for a 16-year-old high school athlete lying in a hospital bed with a broken neck. But Enriquez doesn’t complain. For every negative, he finds a positive.

The only time the glow around Enriquez dims a bit is on Friday nights, when the Glendora High football team has a game. Enriquez, a junior, was projected to be a starting wide receiver and defensive back for the Tartans this season, and it pains him to be so far away from the field.

“My husband and I make sure we never leave Nick alone on game night,” said Mary Enriquez, Nick’s mother. “It’s a hard time for him, and we don’t want him to be alone. Parents and friends call us after each game to give us the score and let us know what happened. It’s the next best thing to actually being there.”

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On Aug. 13, Enriquez and his girlfriend of two years, Brook Norton, decided to spend the day at Newport Beach. Both were enjoying a week of vacation before the start of school and the fall sports season.

At the end of the afternoon, as they were packing their belongings, Enriquez decided to take one last ride on the waves. He was about 20 feet out when he dived into the water. His head hit a sand bar on the ocean floor, breaking his neck and leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down.

It was about 30 seconds before someone spotted him on his back, unable to move and taking in water. Within minutes, he was pulled to the shore and under the care of paramedics. He was rushed to Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, where Dr. Oleg Chikovani diagnosed the severity of the break and then put Enriquez in a halo to keep him from moving his head.

“I felt a thud when I hit the sand bar, but nothing hurt,” Enriquez recalls. “Nothing would work, though, and immediately I knew I was paralyzed. I just said a prayer and tried not to lose faith.”

Chikovani also injected Enriquez with large doses of steroids to control the swelling. A CT scan revealed a break of the fourth vertebra, which normally results in near-total paralysis.

“Most of my patients with this kind of a break can’t breathe on their own,” said Chikovani, a neurosurgeon. “Nick has not only been able to breathe on his own, but he’s improved since the accident. This would appear to be a good sign about his future.”

Two weeks ago, Enriquez had his first surgery. Chikovani removed the broken vertebra, two disks and fragments that were compressing the spinal cord. Bone was taken from Enriquez’s hip and used to fuse together the bones in his neck.

The halo, screwed into Enriquez’s head in four places, will stay on several more months until his neck has had a chance to heal.

Enriquez has movement in his arms and toes. He gets a tingly feeling over most parts of his body and is regaining some muscle control. He’s optimistic, in time, that he will walk again.

“If someone came up and offered me a shot that would make me all better in a day, of course I would take it,” said Enriquez, who has lost 30 pounds. “But I realized after the first day that that wasn’t going to happen. So, I’ve had to be realistic. I know this is going to take time.”

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Nick is the middle of three sons of Dave and Mary Enriquez. Lawrence, 18, is a football player at Citrus College in Glendora, and Alex, 14, is on the freshman football team at Glendora High.

Nick was even more athletically inclined than his brothers. It started with Little League baseball and continued when he started high school two years ago. He was quarterback for the freshman football team and earned a starting role as a defensive back on the varsity as a sophomore. He also worked to become a starting outfielder on the baseball team last season and earned honorable-mention honors in the Baseline League.

He spent his summer playing football, baseball and lifting weights. At 6 feet and 175 pounds, Enriquez was in the best shape of his life. Football Coach Gary Day planned to start Enriquez on offense, defense and special teams.

“This kid wasn’t going to leave the field,” Day said. “He was one of our two best players, and he still had another year to go.”

The team has dedicated its season to Enriquez, honoring him with a full page in the program. Teammates are wearing his No. 21 on their helmets, and a big rock next to the practice field has been painted with a large 21. Players touch the rock before each practice.

Mary Enriquez said her son had already begun hearing from colleges. Because of his 3.6 grade-point average, he had received inquiries from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

When news of Enriquez’s injury spread through the Glendora community in the San Gabriel Valley, more than 60 people showed up at the hospital. Family members, friends and teammates have kept regular visiting hours, making sure Enriquez is seldom alone.

He spends several hours a day in physical therapy at St. Jude’s Hospital in Fullerton. Teachers occasionally drop by to keep him up on his studies. His telephone has been rigged up so he can have conversations on the speakerphone. And he’s trying to find time to catch up on reading.

“Of course, I do think about everything that has happened to me,” Enriquez said. “But I’m not saddened by it. I know this all happened for a reason. I’ve been able to get closer to the people who mean the most to me. And I’ve learned more about myself.

“I don’t want it to be the end of my life. I’ll make something of myself. I may be in a wheelchair, but I’m not handicapped.”