Intensively Caring

As they drove across the desert from Las Vegas to their Encino home Thursday after attending a Laker fantasy camp, team broadcaster Chick Hearn and Marge, his wife of nearly 64 years, talked about the future.

“I think maybe I’d like to spend more time at home with you,” Chick said.

“Good, then make this season coming up your last,” Marge replied.

“I think I will,” Chick said.

Marge recalled that moment Sunday afternoon as she sat outside the intensive-care unit at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where her 85-year-old husband remained in critical but stable condition a day after undergoing two craniotomies to control brain hemorrhaging following a fall Friday night at his home.

“He is doing as well as can be expected, especially for a gentleman his age,” said Dr. Marc Kerner, chief of surgery at the hospital.

Hearn, who remains under heavy sedation, will undergo a series of what Kerner called “specialized tests” today to better determine his condition.

Neurosurgeon Asher Taban had said Saturday that, because of damage to the left frontal area of the brain, the area that controls speech, it was “probable” Hearn’s broadcasting career was over. He has been the Laker announcer for 42 seasons.

“If he can live a normal life, we could handle that,” Marge said. “I don’t care about the games.”

Marge said her husband had desperately cared about two bichon frise dogs the couple had owned. They had been forced to put Oliver and Ashley, both 17, to sleep several years ago.

“All he ever talked about were those dogs,” Marge said. “When he comes home, I think I’ll try to get another pair. He’d love that. I don’t want a newborn puppy, but there must be someone out there with a one-year-old or two-year-old bichon. I think, when he comes home, something like that will keep him out of the depression I know he will immediately have. Anyone would have.”

Sitting with Marge over the long hours in the waiting room were her granddaughter Shannon Hearn Newman; Shannon’s husband, Louis; Susan Stratton, who finished her 25th season as Hearn’s producer in June, and publicist Bob Steiner and his wife Mary Jane.

Upon arriving Sunday, Steiner said he had a message for the family from Laker owner Jerry Buss, who was in London when he received the news of Hearn’s accident. Steiner then kissed Marge on the cheek.

Cards and calls expressing prayers and good wishes have flowed in. Marge was handed a get-well card from a young child who had drawn several eggs hatching, with the idea that a healthy chick would emerge.

One fan had intercepted Shannon and asked if he could get Hearn’s autograph for his son. He was informed that Hearn was unconscious in intensive care. Undaunted, the fan tried again several hours later.

Marge smiled when she was asked what it had meant to her husband to make it back in front of the Laker microphone in April after his streak of 3,338 consecutive games over 36 years had been broken by open-heart surgery last December, followed by hip replacement surgery in February. Hearn returned at the end of the season and worked every game in the playoffs, his last broadcast being the game that clinched the Lakers’ third consecutive NBA championship.

“He was happy he was able to do that,” Marge said, “so happy.”

When she went home Saturday night, Marge said, she went into the backyard and retraced her husband’s steps over and over, trying to determine exactly what had caused the injury.

“We were sitting out on the pool deck drinking some juice,” she said, “and he had noticed a planter turned the wrong way.”

Marge had told him that’s what they had a gardener for.

“But he could be stubborn,” she said. “I went in to fix dinner and he must have tried to turn it himself.”

Marge said that when she looked out the window, she saw her husband lying on the cement, inches from the swimming pool. Apparently he had pulled on the planter, tumbled backward down two steps and landed on the cement, hitting the back of his head.

“A little more and he’d have gone into the water,” Marge said. “I ran out and screamed ‘Francis’ [his given name], but I got no response. I shook him, jolted him, trying to get any reaction, but I didn’t get any. His eyes didn’t look good.”

Marge called a neighbor, Sandy Kessler, and asked her to phone 911.

“I went and got a blanket,” Marge said, “and put it over him. I always heard it was good to cover somebody up in a situation like that. I didn’t know what else I could do.”

Marge said she contemplated the events of the evening over and over as she tried to get to sleep Saturday night.

“We’ll never really know what happened,” she said, “and it doesn’t really matter.”

Marge went into intensive care to visit her husband Sunday, spoke to him without knowing if he heard her and then returned.

“Everybody’s career must end sometime,” she said. “But if we can live decent lives, we’ll be fine. Now, that’s out of our control.”