Putting Their Heads Together to Get Their Lives Back

When Daniel Pokracki was in his teens, he suffered a major head injury in a collision while playing ice hockey, his favorite sport.

Olga Harris, mother of two, remembers the excitement of finding a good parking spot at South Coast Plaza at Christmastime; her next recollection was of waking up in a hospital with a major skull fracture--from an auto accident after she left the mall that day.

Ted May, who trained other desk employees at American Airlines, suffered head injuries in a car crash too. He temporarily lost his sight and his ability to speak. Then there was Leonard Lopez, father of three, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, whose career was ended by a brain tumor.

What these four shared at first was a belief that they’d hit bottom. “I no longer believed in myself,” May said. Harris said she felt she’d lost her personality. Lopez deplored that he was unable to be a father or a good marriage partner.

Four people who were living full and happy lives when unexpected tragedies struck. But now they share something else--a vigorous belief that they can start over.

I listened to their words Wednesday at an outdoor ice cream social/graduation ceremony for the Traumatic Head Injury program at Coastline Community College in Costa Mesa. Students and staff affectionately call it T.H.I. By the time the day’s event came to a close, there weren’t a lot of dry eyes left in the crowd.

Stacey Hunter Schwartz, the college’s associate dean for disabled services, was among those choking back tears. Before she was promoted last year, she was one of the T.H.I. instructors; some of those graduating were her former students.

She said the students get intense personal instruction about concentrating on skills available to them, rather than skills they had before their injuries. For example, Lopez still can’t drive a car and never will be a deputy again. But right now he’s learning how to take care of his children and cook the family’s meals.

The dean later told me the program works because it is highly structured, something the students occasionally resist at first.

The students in this class--about 80 altogether--have suffered injuries that have affected their motor skills, their speech or their ability to retain memory. But to see most of them, you would have no idea their lives were any different from the ones they led before.

Instructors singled out for awards a number of students who have shown courage. One instructor talked about a student who had such balance problems that she held her head up with both hands rather than miss a day of school. Another talked about a former student who is now pulling down a 4.0 at Saddleback College.

It was a group hug kind of day, one I’m glad I got to share in. Most moving to me was Leonard Lopez, the former deputy. He told the crowd:

“When I first came to T.H.I., I was unable to communicate, which made me feel dumb. I felt lost. Now, I have learned compensation strategies.”

Lopez said that after his two surgeries he got in the habit of letting his wife make all the decisions. But through his rehabilitation, he said, he’s learned to take charge, to be more of a parent and a husband.

He told the audience: “It feels great to stand up here in front of my wife and our three children, knowing that I have coped with these difficulties. . . . Now, my life really begins.”

Ted May also said something that had tremendous meaning: “To me, the best part of the program is that we students are encouraging each other’s efforts.”

Mailbag: My columns about mail delays in Fullerton and local student essayists have brought the largest recent response.

Regarding the mail: Though I heard from several people in Fullerton unhappy about the new later hours for mail delivery on their routes, most of the calls came from people upset about lost mail. Karen Rice of Santa Ana said she has had three checks disappear in the mail in the past month. She called later to say that one day this week nobody on her block received mail at all. When she called the post office, she said she was told the mail carrier had been scared off by someone’s dog.

One mail carrier’s wife called me to say that nobody has an inherent right to early mail delivery, and that the work mail carriers do is seldom appreciated. She’s probably right about that.

Regarding the student essayists, many people called or wrote to say hurrah. I had written about Katrina Tangen of Newport Harbor High School and her award-winning essay. I’d mentioned in passing that she was also her class salutatorian. The valedictorian for that class is Michael Hoezel, 17, best known to some for starting a fund-raising effort for the Orangewood Children’s Home that raised some $80,000.

His mother, Elizabeth Hoezel, was among the callers. She has a special reason to be proud. From the day Michael was born, she has been a single parent raising two sons on her own, while building her own real estate business. Tangen is headed for Harvard. Hoezel has been accepted at Yale.

Wrap-Up: I’ve always admired teachers who had the patience and stamina to work with special-education students. At Wednesday’s Coastline College ceremony, Dean Stacey Hunter Schwartz told the audience that it’s the students who inspire her and her staff. “We’ve often wondered,” she said, “how we would hold up if we had to face this same adversity.”

It turns out one of the instructors had to do just that. Tracy Goldberg, a T.H.I. instructor for 10 years, suffered from breast cancer this past year. Goldberg is so popular that other faculty members pitched in without pay to take over her classes when she had to be out for treatment. On Wednesday, Goldberg was honored with the Outstanding Instructor award. She received a standing ovation.

I’m not an expert on these kinds of programs. But if student enthusiasm counts, Coastline’s got a winner with Dean Hunter Schwartz and her faculty and staff.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail [email protected]