A Spirit the Waves Couldn't Break

The experts use vivid vocabulary to describe the action and peril involved. The waves don't spill; they "plunge." Bodysurfers and boogie-boarders such as Josh "go over the falls." Even unsuspecting swimmers risk "getting slammed" -- pile-driven headfirst into sand as hard as concrete. The spine suffers the worst of the trauma.

Outside her son's hospital room, Nedra Basile alternately despaired and raged. Maybe the locals understood the dangers, she said, but where were tourists' warnings? Not upside-down stick figures on beach patrols' marker boards, but permanent signs like those along the Potomac River near her home. Signs that would graphically detail the risks of playing in these waves or diving into shallow water.

Signs that would say: This many people have broken their necks here.

"If three people in a two-week period had been eaten by sharks, it would be all over the world," she said.

Actually, those numbers were low. Counting Josh, Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore admitted four severe spinal cord injuries during the first two weeks of August. The following week, a fifth. On Sept. 1, a sixth. The following, a seventh.

All were from Delaware and Maryland beaches.

Medically, there was nothing surprising about the diagnosis -- fractured cervical vertebra, fifth from the top. Hours after Josh arrived, surgeons at Shock Trauma stabilized the bone by fusing the C5 to its neighbors.

In his CAT scan, the scaffolding of internal hardware came into glaring, startling view as the machine traversed tissue. John Basile loaded the images onto his laptop and nightly searched the Internet for the top treatment options, the most promising clinical trials. A urologist, he knew enough neurology to realize what little hope there was. The way the doctors talked discouraged even that.

"Your son has a 2 to 15 percent chance of recovery," one informed Josh's parents, without specifying what recovery he meant.

"Your son will never get off the ventilator," another said.

The spinal cord often is likened to a highway of nerves traveling south from the brain. Protecting it, like a segmented tunnel, are 33 vertebrae. From each hard ring extend lesser roadways, which carry nerve signals to the farthest extremities of the body. A catastrophic accident on the main thoroughfare wreaks the same havoc as a catastrophic accident on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. It stops virtually everything.

Yet the central nervous system's ability to respond is tragically limited, with no emergency crews that can repair damaged cells or reopen, much less rebuild, connections. With neural traffic blocked at C5, the most mundane motions and sensations of living would be beyond Josh's reach. Walking, rolling over in bed, brushing his own hair, brushing his own teeth. He would lose control of his bowels and bladder. He would need to be belted into a chair to not fall.