Allie Skelley recovering from neck surgery(sci)

[Max]

Allie Skelley recovering from neck surgery
Devastating check could have paralyzed, killed Wolfeboro hockey player

By PETER LEBLANC

Assistant Sports Editor

DOVER - Chip Skelley knew as soon as he heard the call over the Internet - his son, Allie, was hurt. Badly.

"I knew when he didn't get up, something was up," the elder Skelley said about the senior defenseman and alternate captain for the St. Lawrence University men's hockey team. "My wife was shopping and I called her right away. I said 'you have to come home, Allie's hurt.' We left right away. I just couldn't believe what he was going through."

Allie Skelley was hit from behind by Lake Superior State senior Aaron Davis during Friday night's game, injuring his neck by decompressing his C-7 vertebrae and dislocating his C-6. The C-6 injury is usually what snaps a spinal cord.

"I was cutting to the net in the offensive zone," Allie Skelley recalled. "The puck was out in front of me a little bit. ... He just kind of hit me when I was a few feet away from the boards."

"I couldn't lift my face off the ice," he continued. "I rolled over and tried to get up."

Davis was penalized for hitting from behind, but all accounts claim there was no malicious intent.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the story is that he almost went back on the ice after trainers asked him how he was doing. As a matter of fact, he even skated off the ice with minimal assistance.

"I felt like my muscles were just spasming in my lower neck and upper back," he said. "Something in the back of my head told me not to go out there, though. Then I started swelling up."

The Wolfeboro resident, who was expected to be released from the Medical Center of Vermont in Burlington either Tuesday night or today, considers himself lucky after coming close to paralysis or even death. If he had returned to play, there is no telling the extent of the injury.

"That's obviously the most important thing," Allie Skelley said from his hospital bed Tuesday. "I can get up and walk to the bathroom everyday. It sort of puts things in perspective."

After approximately 2½ hours of surgery, Skelley will never be able to play competitive contact sports again, but is expected to be able to do just about everything he was able to do before the injury - even skate a bit.

He certainly will not continue competing for the Saints, but St. Lawrence will delay this semester's finals, and allow Skelley to take them later. He is expected to finish studying for his bachelor's in economics on time this spring and his plan to get his master's next year and use up his last year of on-ice eligibility isn't completely void either.

"Coach (Joe Marsh) was here yesterday," Allie Skelley said. "He said I can get involved with the conditioning coaches or something and the school would take care of (paying for the master's degree)."

Doctors, considering how devastating an injury it was, attributed the hockey player's tremendous physical condition to saving his mobility and life, according to Chip Skelley.

"He's lived in a gym since sophomore year of high school," Chip Skelley said. "That accident, if not paralyzing him, should have killed him."

Chip Skelley said doctors told the family that the strong neck muscles helped keep everything intact and actually made for an easier-than-expected surgery.

Still, though, the injury had its effects.

"The fact he couldn't play again took a few hours to get over," the elder Skelley said.

"I have no regrets," the younger Skelley said. "I played Division I hockey for years and a lot of people can't say that."

One of the highlights of his career actually occurred recently on Dec. 7 when he got to play on the Whittemore Center ice he had hoped to play on as a youngster when St. Lawrence came to town and upset the University of New Hampshire, 4-2.

"I grew up watching UNH play there," he said. "(Playing there) is definitely something I wanted to accomplish, and I did. What else can you ask for? I've been very fortunate."

Allie Skelley must wear a neck collar for six to 12 weeks, but after a total of six months of healing should regain the ability to live a completely normal life.

Skelley is grateful for the many visitors and callers as well as flowers and notes from well-wishers he received while in the hospital.

"To know all those people are thinking of me," he said, "I can't describe how it feels."

© 2002 Geo. J. Foster Company


http://www.citizen.com/news2002/December02/Dec18/sp12.18.02a.asp

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Wolfeboro's Skelley just
happy to be moving
By ALLEN LESSELS
Union Leader Sports

Two weeks ago, he and his teammates reveled in a huge and stunning upset win over the University of New Hampshire at the Whittemore Center and his coach raved about his athleticism and work ethic and leadership abilities.

In their next game, last Friday night, Allie Skelley's collegiate hockey career came crashing to a close when he was checked into the boards at St. Lawrence University's Appleton Arena and broke bones in his neck.

Skelley, a senior and assistant captain of the Saints, had another full year of eligibility remaining. Yesterday, he was back at home in Wolfeboro, recuperating and feeling fortunate that he will be able to do everything but contact sports down the road.

"There's only one word to describe how I feel, and that's 'lucky," Skelley said. "From everyone I talked to and from what the doctors told me and my parents, I'm very lucky just to be able to walk. "Obviously, that's a good feeling. It helps ease the pain of not being able to play hockey again. That sounds kind of petty in the big picture. It kind of changes your perspective on life in general. Hockey is just a game, you can go on living without it."

He knows that might not be easy.

"I don't know if it has really hit me yet," Skelley said. "I don't know if when I get back to feeling better, I'll wonder why I can't play.

"But I honestly feel real lucky to be able to walk. I could be laying here not able to feel my hands and my toes."

It was that close.

"The doctors made it very clear the reason our son is alive, and/or not a paraplegic is because of the way he kept his body," said Chip Skelley. "If there's any lesson to kids in this, it's to go to the gym and take care of your body.

"When he needed his body most it came to his rescue. In a big way."

This ordeal started early in Friday night's game against Lake Superior State. Skelley was in the offensive zone, cutting to the net for a pass.

"The puck was a little in front of my stick and went to the end boards," he said. "I knew I was going to get to the puck, and I was thinking how I was going to spin off the guy behind me, I was feeling pressure from behind.

"Right as I got to the puck, a couple of feet from the boards, I was about to spin off and he got me good from behind and I remember falling awkwardly into the boards."

The player who hit him was penalized for hitting from behind.

And Skelley was on the ice.

"It's like stunning when you hit that hard, and the next thing I knew I was on my back and kind of curled up," he said. "I just felt pain in my neck and upper back and wanted to move my fingers and toes and make sure. I moved them and felt a little better."

He was helped off the ice to the bench and then to the locker room.

"The scary thing is, I was thinking of going back in," Skelley said. "Something was telling me not to. But it's a tough decision to make. You want to suck it up. You don't want to be not playing if it's something minor."

It was nothing minor.

Chip and Deb Skelley go to most games at St. Lawrence, but he was due to work last weekend and was not at this one, though his parents were. Chip was at home and had heard the incident over the Internet, knows his son and coached him in football and basketball at Kingswood Regional and sensed this was not a minor problem. Chip heard from his father, Alan, from the training room and talked to Allie briefly.

A decision was made to take an ambulance to the local hospital for precautionary reasons. An initial reading of X-rays indicated there no problem. But another reading showed a problem with the C-7 vertebrae. A CAT scan confirmed the severity of the injury.

Skelley was strapped to a backboard for a painful three-hour ride to the Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington, Vt. He got there at 3 a.m., his parents an hour later.

First, he was put in a halo to align his back before surgery.

"The ambulance ride was horrible," Skelley said. "Probably the worst part was not knowing what was wrong. So many things are going through your mind. You can't move anything. Everything was cramped up, your back, your butt, your legs. You couldn't cough. You want to relax your muscles, but you can't. . . . But the traction was tough, too.

"They put a halo on and screw it into your head," he said. "And they put weights on the halo and pulled my head. The only thing they could give me was shots in my face. Every time I felt pressure they'd give me a novocaine shot again. I still have indentations behind my ears and in my head where the halo was."

In surgery, doctors took a bone from his upper hip and used it to fuse the C-5, C-6 and C-7 vertebrae.

"The doctors said it will be stronger than it was before," Skelley said. "The only reason you can't play contact sports is that it's so strong at the top and at the bottom that if you ever hit it just right, the spinal cord would snap in two. We don't need that."

Skelley has a neck brace that he has to wear for about six weeks. Joe Marsh, a UNH grad and the St. Lawrence coach, has talked to him about coming back next year and helping out with the team and getting his masters, as he had planned all along. Skelley figures he will do that.

His father says Allie is saying all the right things now, but expects he may have a tough time when it sinks in that his career is over.

"There will be good days and bad days, I'm sure," Chip Skelley said. "But this is incredible. What a Merry Christmas. We're very thankful for many different things. The fact I can sit next to him and watch his feet move. Watching him walk around the house here, we're very thankful. It kind of puts life in perspective. What's good, what's bad. What's right, what's wrong. In an instant, it can do that."



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