Ridin' High John...update from a local paper

J'suis vraiment content d'annoncer que Big John va beaucoup mieux!
This made my day.
-AJ

Longboarder ridin' high -- again

By Lauren Ober
Free Press Staff Writer

October 17, 2007
John Van Hazinga's body is a road map of scars. Each thick band of skin tells a story of this seemingly invincible man's life.

The shiny jagged swath on his shoulder represents the time his arm was pulled into a milk processor. The wide strip that cuts just below his knee marks an accident while hiking in the Adirondacks. Running the length of his right forearm, a rope-like cord of flesh covers the 10-inch-long metal plate buried beneath, the result of a skateboarding mishap years ago.

Van Hazinga has lost count of his scars, but there are enough to know that he is a man who lives life in the extremes, regardless of the consequences.

Today, Van Hazinga, owner of Ridin' High Skate Shop in Burlington, celebrates his 30th birthday. And after surviving a near-fatal skateboarding accident in July, it's a milestone he knows he is lucky to reach.

Van Hazinga, known as Big John to the skating denizens in Vermont and as Crash to his family, acquired his first skateboard when he was 7. Not long after he learned how to skate, Van Hazinga began racking up his share of battle scars. His injuries were not due to a lack of skill, but rather the desire to skate faster, jump higher and shred harder than anybody else.

Van Hazinga's mother, Lauren Shade, learned early on that her son was not possessed of a sense of safety and risk awareness that most people are.

"My view of John is that he wakes up in the morning and he walks to the edge of the world and decides what he's going to do that day," Shade said.

She and Van Hazinga's father, also named John Van Hazinga, have become used to their son's antics over the years. They long ago stopped trying to change their son's behavior.

"We've had a lot of middle-of-the-night hospital calls from John," said his father, who goes by Van.

This latest late-night call was the worst.

Worst three weeks

On July 12, too much speed coupled with a new longboard likely led to the horrible crash on the Cambridge side of Vermont 108 that sent Van Hazinga into a coma for 30 days. He suffered hemorrhagic bruises on the left and right frontal and temporal lobes of his brain and bleeding on the left side of his brain.

His injuries, which included multiple facial fractures, were compounded by the fact that Van Hazinga's lungs were in bad shape from years of smoking. His father, who lives in New Hampshire, and Shade, who lives in New Jersey, drove through the night to be with their son at Fletcher Allen Health Care."It was just a terrible panic. I just stood crying in my living room," Shade said.

The day after the accident, Van Hazinga opened his eyes and moved all his limbs. But that was the last they'd see him move for weeks. The three weeks that followed were the worst weeks of Shade's life.

"We just lived in the moment, not knowing what would happen from one minute to the next," Shade said.

The family watched the monitors hooked up to Van Hazinga's body and kept a vigil at his bedside. For three weeks, Van Hazinga's condition fluctuated between dire and stable several times a day.

Then he made a breakthrough. The pressure in his skull stabilized. But questions arose.

The family wondered who Van Hazinga would be when he emerged from the coma. Would he be the same fearless, free spirit, the man with hundreds of friends drawn to him by his affable, burly-bear persona?

As it turned out, Van Hazinga is much the same as he was before the accident. He still loves reggae music. He's still a vegetarian. He's still an ardent supporter of marijuana legalization. And he's still pushing the boundaries.

On Sept. 28, 79 days after the accident, the skater, snowboarder, business-owner and professional risk-taker walked arm-in-arm with his parents out of the doors of Fanny Allen Rehabilitation Center in Colchester.

Back to normal

By all accounts, Van Hazinga shouldn't be cleaning out his shop's warehouse, going to vegan potlucks or fiddling around with his video camera. But he is. Dr. Roger Knakal, who is overseeing Van Hazinga's rehabilitation, says his patient's recovery has been "extraordinary."

Van Hazinga attends physical, occupational and speech therapy three times a week. He's working on regaining balance and strength, particularly on his right side, which bore the brunt of the impact. He's also trying to drop some weight from his 260-pound frame and has been calling himself "Big John who wants to be Medium John" on his blog.

With his occupational therapist, Kristie Horner, Van Hazinga is working on multitasking and word recall, which, Horner said, will be essential for him to maintain his business. Horner also said Van Hazinga still lacks insight and inhibition, two qualities that will help keep him safe. He has no recollection of his early hospitalization and has some trouble remembering friends.

Van Hazinga has difficulty recognizing the extent of his injuries. At the moment, his ego is inflated due to his lack of inhibition, Knakal said. He often talks about getting back on his longboard and being the fastest longboarder in Vermont, despite the fact that his accident happened while he was going fast -- about 40 mph-- on a longboard when he crashed.

To his mother's chagrin, Van Hazinga has already gotten back on his skateboard, with the help of a friend.

"He doesn't realize that he is disinhibited," Knakal said. "He doesn't recognize that he has problems that will affect his reaction time. He's still weak on his right side. All those things add up to safety concerns and affect his ability to make good decisions."

Van Hazinga is making great strides in rehab, but his doctor and therapists are reluctant to give a long-term prognosis. Because every patient with traumatic brain injury is affected differently, it is impossible to say how Van Hazinga will progress.

Knakal said Van Hazinga has gained back about 85 percent of the skills, insight and strength he's going to gain back, but he said his patient still has a way to go. Van Hazinga needs to make a "big leap," says Horner, the occupational therapist, but she anticipates it will happen soon.

Reconnecting

In the meantime, Van Hazinga is returning to his former life. He's keeping busy with rehab and affairs at the shop.

"I feel a lot better," Van Hazinga said. "I really want to come back strong."

Van Hazinga is also reconnecting with the friends with whom he was out of touch for those 79 days. During a recent visit to Ridin' High to take pictures for his Web site, Van Hazinga's cell phone rang half a dozen times in 10 minutes. All the calls were from friends wishing him well. People who heard Big John would be popping into the shop stopped by to hi.

"Every time I talk to a friend, I remember my life more," he said.

Van Hazinga's mother said she hopes those friends will help her son uphold the pledge he made to his family after the accident. He vowed not to drink, smoke, skateboard or snowboard for a year to give his body time to heal.

In the coming months, Shade and Van Hazinga's father will return to their homes, and Van Hazinga will be left to take care of himself. That prospect worries Shade.

"It's so scary right now," she said. "We're struggling with how to get across to him that he's not indestructible. He doesn't get that he's delicate."

But Shade knows that risk-taking and pushing the limits are just part of her son's fundamental makeup. He's hard-wired to be fearless.

"That's how I live my life, Mom," Van Hazinga tells her.

Contact Lauren Ober at 660-1868 or lober@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com


Follow John Van Hazinga's progress:

www.johnridinghigh.blogspot.com
www.rdnhgh.com

Je ne le connait pas mais chu ben content pour lui. Une preuve qu'il y a toujours de l'espoir pis qu'y faut pas abdiquer face aux épreuves.