ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605130025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT has left Brent Beever fighting for his life as Roanoke College battles in lacrosse.
When Roanoke College returns to the NCAA Division III men's lacrosse playoffs Sunday, a little part of Brent Beever will be going with it. The decals on the back of the Maroons' helmets, like the unused No.36 jersey hanging in the equipment room, are a tribute to a teammate they were just starting to know.
Beever won't be making the trip to Salisbury, Md., where the Maroons visit unbeaten and No.1-ranked Salisbury State, but his future looks much brighter than it did following the automobile accident May 27, 1995, that disabled an active, fun-loving, handsome young man entering the prime of his life.
Beever was out with three friends from the Baltimore area, shortly after midnight, when their car swerved and struck a utility pole. The pole fell on the left rear of the car, injuring only Beever, who was a passenger in the seat directly behind the driver.
Beever had a traumatic head injury, as well as serious internal injuries, and was in an unresponsive state when he was airlifted to the shock-trauma unit at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, where he remained for 33 days.
He subsequently spent three months in the traumatic-brain-injury unit at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore before he was released Sept.28 ``because he had not made enough functional progress for them to keep him there,'' Beever's mother, Lesley, said. ``Insurance companies dictate that.''
It is hard to say how long Beever spent in a coma. That is a matter of medical interpretation. However, friends who tried to visit Beever during his hospitalization were deeply troubled by what they saw.
``I couldn't stay very long,'' said Chris Gettmann, a teammate of Beever's at Boys' Latin School in Baltimore and at Roanoke College. ``I mainly talked to his mother. It was tough to see him because his head was shaved and he was just lying there, with tubes going into his mouth.
``It was tough to deal with that. I've known him since the third grade and he just wasn't the same. We had actually become closer friends since we had come to college. After the school year, I had rented a trailer and we'd gone back to Baltimore together, so I had just seen him.''
Beever was receiving in-home therapy until the family learned of a relatively new procedure, called Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in which the patient inhales pure oxygen in a cylindrical, one-person chamber. He was accepted into a program in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and began treatment Feb.1.
``The opportunity for oxygen to reach an injury, wherever it is in the body, is a big factor in the healing process,'' Lesley Beever said. ``We could have gone down there and come right back, but as long as he was responding, we decided to give it a three month-stint.''
A computerized scan measured Beever's brain activity Feb. 6, his 20th birthday, and again Feb. 29, after 31 oxygen treatments. ``The improvement was very remarkable,' his mother said. ``The activity doesn't mean you're cured. It just means the opportunity is there for the oxygen to do what it is supposed to do.''
Beever can't talk yet, although he has been working with a speech therapist. He can't walk yet, but his legs have become stronger and he is undergoing rehabilitation for that, too. He communicates by smiling or pointing when given a choice of responses.
``I can't say he thinks as clearly or as orderly as he once did,'' Lesley Beever said. ``Until he can tell us, we won't know that for sure. But, I will say he makes progress every day in the sense that he does something that he hasn't done before or does it more consistently.''
Before leaving Florida, the Beevers were able to obtain a used chamber that enabled them to give Brent the hyperbaric oxygen at home. It is a unit, when new, that costs $35,000-$40,000. Despite the savings, medical expenses have been astronomical and the cooperation from insurers grudging.
The Friends of Brent Beever Committee conducted a fund-raising effort culminating in a fund-raiser and silent auction Jan.5 at Boys' Latin. Beever's father, Frank, is in the construction business and his wife is a real-estate agent, which allowed her to move to Florida for three months.
``This whole thing has been a really, really crushing thing for anybody who has been around him and knows him because, if there was ever a kid who enjoyed life and put a lot into it, Brent was one of them,'' said Bob Shriver, the lacrosse coach at Boys' Latin.
Shriver said that Beever, as a senior, received the Never Quit Award that goes to a player who has demonstrated uncommon persistence and dedication.
Beever and Gettmann were among six players from Boys' Latin who came to Roanoke in the fall of 1994. Two left, one was cut and Beever and Gettmann saw playing time on the Maroons' penalty-killing unit. Both were viewed as potential starters by the end of their careers.
On the day that coach Bill Pilat learned of the accident, he received a letter from Beever, who indicated that he might not be returning to school, although Lesley Beever said it was her son's intention to finish his career at Roanoke.
``It was really weird,'' Pilat said. ``I wanted to talk to him, but, of course, I couldn't. I haven't seen him yet. I knew the family, I had recruited him, but I didn't think I could handle seeing him like that. I knew him as was a young kid running around and I hadn't known him for very long.''
Roanoke College donated several items for the silent auction and Pilat, after consulting with athletic director Scott Allison, decided not to issue Beever's jersey and ordered decals with the No.36 for the back of the players' helmets.
Gettmann remembers taking a two-week group trip to North Carolina with Beever before their junior year in high school that involved hiking, climbing and canoeing. Beever also had done some sky-diving and the readiness to accept a challenge may have aided his rehabilitation.
``Absolutely,'' Lesley Beever said. ``Also, [given] the fact that he had a learning disability, nothing has ever come easy to him. He's always had to fight for everything, so maybe he was prepared for this.
``Every injury is different, but the majority of people in Brent's condition are never brought home. They're placed in some sub-acute type of care. We just felt, at four months, the injury was too young. No one can place a value on his motivation to recover or the motivation of his family to help him recover.''
Beever's mother said it is her understanding that, on the night of the accident, the driver was not wearing shoes and that his foot slipped off the accelerator. She said a suit is pending.
``I don't get too much into that,'' she said. ``My son's attorney is handling that. I'm really involved in his care more than anything because, let me tell you one thing, there isn't enough money in the world to make up for what's happened.''
She has kept family and friends informed of her son's progress with four, single-spaced, one-page newsletters. In the last, dated April 11, she said it was hard to remember a happy moment.
``The devastation from something like this is so incredible,'' she subsequently explained, ``that, to say you're happy, is such a misstatement. I'm going to be really happy when he's as close to normal as possible. Short of that, I'm going to be a pretty sad person because his life, as he knew it, has been stolen from him.''
LENGTH: Long : 127 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshot of Beever colorby CNB