Man Bounces Back From the Dead
After Nearly Giving Organs
Two years ago, Sam Schmid's close encounter
with death was called a "Christmas miracle." As he
lay in a coma after sustaining massive brain
injuries in a car crash, doctors were discussing
organ donation with his parents and ready to take
him off life support.
Schmid astounded those at his hospital bedside
who thought he was brain dead, raising two
fingers to signal he still had life left in him. But at
the time, no one knew if the Tucson, Ariz., college
student would ever return to his studies -- or
even walk or talk again.
Today at 23, he is a force on the basketball court,
enrolled in college classes and is hoping to be a
veterinary technician. Schmid credits his surgeon
and the Center for Transitional Neuro Rehabilitation
at Barrow Neurological Institute , where he was
recently discharged.
Sam Schmid emerges from a coma.
"I am surprised at the end result," Schmid told
ABC News. "I was willing to comply with all the
help at Barrow and my recovery is based on the
hard work I did."
Neuropsychologist Kristi Husk led a team of
speech, occupational and physical therapists who
have worked a near 40-hour week with Schmid
over the last two years. The holistic program offers
outpatient therapy to brain-injured patients and is
one of the few in the nation designed to help them
ease back into school or the workplace.
When Schmid arrived he was on a walker with a
gatekeeper; he had difficulties with basic speech
and even swallowing food safely.
“I would describe it as a fragile state physically
and emotionally,” Husk told ABC News. But the
“boot camp”-like intensity of rehabilitation inspired
Schmid, who was quickly placed in a vocational
transition, volunteering at a gym for the disabled
and working at the hospital mail room and library,
relearning work habits and socialization skills.
“His recovery is really extraordinary,” she said.
“We are very proud of him.”
“We see a lot of patients here and Sam was at the
most severe end of the spectrum,” said Husk, who
has been in the field for a decade. “He was found
dead at the scene (of the accident) and was on life
support. We have seen patients recover here and
seen some small miracles, but Sam’s is by far the
most phenomenal recovery in my experience.”
Schmid was a junior and business major at the
University of Arizona when he was critically
wounded in an Oct. 19, 2011 five-car accident in
Tucson.
He was returning from coaching basketball at his
former Catholic school when a van swerved into
his lane. The Jeep in which he was riding went
airborne, hit a light pole and landed on its side.
Schmid's left hand and both of his femurs broke
and required surgery. But he had suffered massive
head injuries that are nearly always fatal.
The 21-year-old's brain injuries were so severe
that the local hospital could not treat him. He was
airlifted to Barrow at St. Joseph's Medical Center
in Phoenix, where specialists performed surgery
for a life-threatening aneurysm.
As hospital officials began palliative care and
broached the subject of organ donation with his
family, Schmid began to respond, holding up two
fingers on command.
When ABC News interviewed Schmid in December
of that year, he was in a wheelchair and his
speech was slow. Doctors said he would recover,
but no one expected it so quickly and so fully.
His mother, Susan Regan, who is vice president of
the insurance company Lovitt-Touche, and a
devout Roman Catholic, called his astounding
recovery, “a modern-day … Christmas miracle.”
“I have friends who are atheists who have called
me and said, 'I am going back to church,’” said the
now 61-year-old.
Schmid's doctor, renowned neurosurgeon Dr.
Robert Spetzler, said that while others had
“reasonable” reasons to think Schmid was brain
dead, he had a "hunch" the young man would
make it. Spetzler has performed more than 6,000
brain surgeries and trained the doctor who
operated on Congresswoman Gaby Giffords after
she was shot in 2011.
During surgery, Spetzler clipped the balloon-like
aneurysm in the blood vessel -- "as if I were
patching a tire," a procedure that eventually
worked.
For days Schmid didn't seem to be responding,
but what puzzled his doctor was that he did not
see fatal injuries on the MRI scan. So he decided
to keep Schmid on life support longer.
"There was plenty wrong -- he had a hemorrhage,
an aneurysm and a stroke from the part of the
aneurysm," Spetzler said in 2011. "But he didn't
have a blood clot in the most vital part of his
brain, which we know he can't recover from. And
he didn't have a massive stroke that would predict
no chance of a useful existence."
So while the family was given a realistic picture of
Schmid's poor chances for survival, Spetzler
ordered one more MRI to see if the critical areas of
the brain had turned dark, indicating brain death.
"If not, we would hang on and keep him on
support," he said. "But I didn't want to give the
family false hope."
Schmid's mother said no one "specifically" asked
if her son would be a donor, but kept praying that
her son would come around.
The MRI came back with encouraging news during
the day and by evening Schmid "inexplicably"
followed the doctors' commands, holding up two
fingers.
His mother said today that the rigorous
rehabilitation has been a "Godsend."
"Sam is as he is today as a result of their driving
him to succeed. He gets better every day," she
said. "I do think of it as a miracle. He was so
close to death and came back. I do believe God
has a huge part in this."
But the psychological challenges in his recovery
were as great as the physical ones, said
neuropsychologist Husk, who worked with Schmid
on his coping skills.
“Those who are young have more endurance for
the aggressive therapy than the older patients,”
she said. “But, on the other hand, he is just
starting to enter adulthood and had difficulty with
the acceptance part. He wasn’t going to go right
back to college, or graduate with his class or be
with his friends. That was the tough part.”
“You are talking about years of recovery and for
someone in their 20s that’s an eternity,” said
Husk. “But I have to give kudos to him for sticking
with it and being so determined. If there is one
thing I have learned, it’s not to put a cap on these
patients' recovery, because they will surprise you.
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