Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosThe Ortega family — Sherry, Chelsea and Charlie — outside the Portland hospital where 14-year-old Cole Ortega is recovering from the second surgery to reattach his left arm.
Joni Kabana / For The Bulletin
Bend surfer’s family recalls harrowing day at beach
By Lauren Dake / The Bulletin
Published: July 13. 2008 4:00AM PSTPORTLAND — Chelsea Ortega had to make a decision.
The 16-year-old’s choices: Stay with her brother, Cole, in what could be the final moments of his life, or race to the campground to tell her parents he had been hurt while surfing.
Running toward the crowd on the beach huddled around her 14-year-old brother, she knew very little.
Her boyfriend, a couple feet ahead, turned and helped her decide. He would stay with Cole; she should get her parents.
So Chelsea ran.
The slender 16-year-old, soon to be a junior at Summit High School, sprinted more than a mile in her thick neoprene wetsuit.
When she made it to the Pacific City campsite where her parents were preparing for the family’s return to Bend, she screamed.
She couldn’t remember the security code to get into the campsite.
Was it 31?
Finally, the gate opened.
“I was screaming, ‘Mom, Dad’ down the road, past the clubhouse,” Chelsea said Thursday while at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center in Portland, where Cole is recovering from his injuries. “Mom was holding something, and she dropped it. Dad ran straight to get the car. … We got in the car, and I’m pretty sure we peeled out on the gravel.”
A lifelong surfer, Cole’s father, Charlie Ortega, braced himself for the worst. His daughter didn’t know what had happened to his son, who had been surfing 100 yards from the shore at Cape Kiwanda. She knew there was blood and, like Charlie, she assumed it had been a shark.
“I thought he would be dead,” Charlie said.
“I know the size of sharks on the Oregon Coast; they’re giant, and he’s not a big kid. That’s my fear,” he said, recalling that moment on Sunday morning.
By the time Cole’s family made it to the beach, he had been carried from the ocean by a group of surfers who placed him on the back of an Oregon State Police trooper’s truck.
His left arm was completely severed from the propeller of a dory fishing boat, which had been trying to land on the beach when it hit Cole. The boy’s lung was punctured. And his head had cuts from the propeller.
“I came ripping through the parking lot,” Charlie said. “I jumped out and started running down the boat ramp. The sheriff was coming up the boat ramp, and they were screaming at me. They didn’t know who I was. I was screaming, ‘That’s my son!’”
Charlie got out of his truck and jumped on the back of the trooper’s pickup. He started squeezing what was left of his son’s arm, to stop the bleeding. The cut was right above the elbow.
“From that point on, every time he closed his eyes, I thought he was going to go,” Charlie said.
But through it all, Cole never lost consciousness. The former Cascade Middle School student, headed to Summit High this fall, would close his eyes momentarily but never let them stay closed for long.
He remembers all of it, his parents said. But since he is still weak — his condition changed Friday for the first time from “serious” to “good” — they didn’t think it was a good time for their son to comment. And because an investigation is pending, they declined to say what happened in the water Sunday morning.
From the hospital in Tillamook County, Cole was airlifted to Legacy Emanuel. His mom, Sherry, rode with him.
As the Life Flight helicopter touched down on the roof of the Portland hospital, Cole opened his eyes and looked directly at his mother.
Through his oxygen mask, he mouthed, “I love you.”
Sitting outside the Portland hospital Thursday evening recounting the details, Sherry’s eyes fill with tears. She grasped her daughter’s hand. The whole time it was happening, Sherry said, she remembers thinking, “Please, God. Save my son.”
• • •
When Cole was a toddler, his parents briefly took to calling him Bamm-Bamm.
“He would drag around this plastic yellow bat, then it was rollerblades, then a hockey stick and later, baseball was a part of his life,” Sherry said. “Then, he started narrowing it down.”
Sort of, anyway.
Along with being an avid snowboarder and surfer, Cole golfed and played baseball. He finished first at the 2008 U.S. Amateur Snowboard Association National Championships. And, his parents said, the humble kid — who will be mad at them later for singing his praises, as both an athletic and compassionate person — is determined to get better.
“I can tell, knowing my son, that he’s focused on his own recovery,” Sherry said. “His indomitable spirit, his competitive nature and his drive to set goals and exceed those goals. ... He’s thoughtful in nature; when he focuses, he finds his path.”
Charlie agreed that he’s seen some of his son’s competitive nature already come into play with his recovery.
“When he gets ready for a competition, he just goes into his zone. He has his routine; he doesn’t talk a lot,” Charlie said. “With each milestone of recovery, I can see his eyes already thinking way down the line, which is one of the reasons why this is going to be an unbelievable story in two months, six months, a year down the road. It’s just the way Cole is.”
Both of Charlie and Sherry’s children are adventuresome. Born in Hawaii, they were in the water at an early age. The week before the surfing accident, Chelsea and Cole were at a snowboarding camp together. When Cole goes off 40-, 50- or 60-foot jumps on his snowboard, Charlie cringes. And Sherry can’t watch. They know that risk is part of the deal, but they never imagined anything like this.
“This is a parent’s worse nightmare,” Charlie said.
• • •
When Cole landed at Legacy Emanuel, Steven Madey, a trauma and orthopedic surgeon, was waiting for him.
Madey, who has been at the hospital for 11 years, has reattached arms, forearms, hands, fingers, legs and feet before. Within three hours of the accident, Cole’s severed arm had blood flowing through it again.
“It’s a tough injury because the propeller took several whacks through the arm, but everything that could go right in a situation like this did,” Madey said. “He’s young, the limb was reattached in a quick manner, they took care at the beach, the arm was packed in ice, the tourniquet, then helicoptered over here, a lot of things went right. They don’t always go right.”
So far, Cole has undergone two surgeries. The first one lasted five hours, according to Madey.
The bones were put back together with plates and screws; then, the arteries were sewn together, and later, using a microscope, the nerves were sutured. On Wednesday, another surgery cleaned up the first one and made sure it took. Madey attached the triceps and biceps, and graphed the skin.
“His blood is flowing, and everything looks good so far,” Madey said. “He could get out of the hospital sooner than I expect. ... It could be anywhere from several days to a month.”
And although Madey stressed that Cole will have a normal life, that he will be able to do the things he’s done before, it will be months, maybe even a year, to determine how well the arm reattachment surgery took.
• • •
The Ortegas don’t know which surfer grabbed their son’s severed arm. But they call it the ultimate miracle.
“We weren’t there. Who did it? We don’t know,” Charlie said. “But it was unbelievable.”
The family was supposed to go home that day. The holiday weekend was coming to a close, and as the parents packed up, the kids went out for a few more sets.
The waves were big, reaching 8 to 10 feet, and the water was crowded with about 50 surfers. That day, on the crowded Pacific City beach, people worked together to help save Cole’s arm and his life.
There was the trooper, Doug Shugart, on the beach checking fishing licenses. There was the group of surfers who pulled Ortega from the water and placed him on the back of Shugart’s truck. Chelsea’s boyfriend, who ripped off a surf leash and handed it to someone to tie a tourniquet. And when Shugart called out for help, there was the emergency room physician and nurse who stepped up and started working on the boy at the beach.
And now, there’s the surgeon, and all the people from Bend and elsewhere that have filled the Ortega’s voice mail, and sent cards and letters.
“There are so many people to thank,” Sherry said.
In a year, the family would love to see their son have 100 percent use of his left arm. They would love to see him grab a golf club and give it a good swing.
“But using that arm isn’t going to make him a whole person,” Sherry said. “It’s how he gets through this experience, and we’re confident he’ll be stronger because of it.”
Lauren Dake can be reached at 541-419-8074 or at ldake@bendbulletin.com.
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