IPSWICH, S.D. (AP) - Daniel Braun has every reason to avoid contact sports.
Except one. He doesn’t want to.
Braun, a junior at Ipswich High School, is a key cog in the Tigers football, basketball and track and field teams. That’s pretty good for a guy whose high school career started out in a near-miss.
Braun was a passenger in a car that was involved in a head-on collision when he was in eighth grade, the Aberdeen American News reported . The crash resulted in a broken neck, massive internal injuries and a three-month stint in a halo.
“We were coming back from a (Minnesota) Vikings game,” Braun said. “It was snowing and the roads were kind of icy. We were going maybe 50 miles an hour. Another car was overdriving the conditions and came sliding into our lane. Hit us head on.”
Braun was in the back seat of the car and, with no air bag, sustained to most serious injuries. His dad, who was driving, had some glass cuts on his arm. His sister in the front passenger seat broke her thumb.
“I had the most fun,” Braun said, wryly.
Braun sustained a C2 fracture in his neck and a “bucket handle tear” in his abdomen.
“They were pumping blood into me, maybe two liters, but it just kept building up in my stomach,” he said.
Doctors had to make an emergency incision through Braun’s abdomen to find and repair the tear. Once that was done, they stabilized his neck with a halo, a device that is screwed to an individual’s skull to immobilize the neck. This was done to allow the fractured vertebrae to heal naturally.
Braun wore the contraption for a solid three months before graduating briefly to a neck brace, then physical therapy.
“It took me a while to figure out how to walk straight up and get used to the weight,” he said. “Once I figured that out, it was a breeze.”
Now, the only reminders of the crash are the scars - one long, winding incision on his abdomen and four small spots on his head from the screws - and the special collar he wears on the football field to protect his neck against whiplash.
The collar is the one concession Braun makes when it comes to playing sports. Though a smidgen of lingering doubt lurked in his mind during the first month, Braun was adamant that he wanted to continue to play sports again.
“The first month watching everyone else go out there and run around and shoot (basketballs), I was just like, ’What am I supposed to do, just sit here and watch?’” Braun said. “After a while you got used to it. Then you’re just like, ’I’m going to work that much harder when I get back.’”
Braun was cleared two months after the halo came off, though it took some convincing on his part to get the go-ahead to play football.
“(Doctors) didn’t want to fully clear me because … if I got injured again, they didn’t want to have that on their conscience,” Braun said. “I had to get my parents’ OK.”
That, too, took a little convincing from Braun.
“They were more nervous than I was,” he said. “I was just like, ’Let’s go. It’s my favorite sport. Let’s get ready.’ They were more, ’Slow down.’”
Now Braun is back and stronger than ever. He was a key member of the Ipswich football team and is a starter for the basketball squad, scoring 12 points in the Tigers’ season-opening win over Eureka/Bowdle on Dec. 12. He also runs sprints for the track and field squad.
And, while he doesn’t consciously think about the accident, his injuries or his scars, he knows these moments are not to be taken for granted.
“You never know how quickly some things can end,” he said.
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Information from: Aberdeen American News, http://www.aberdeennews.com
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