Published: 08:39 PM, Wed May 02, 2012
Legally blind Gray's Creek golfer overcomes traumatic brain injury to regoin team
By Stephen Schramm
Staff writer
When Gray's Creek High School golfer Jesse Smith talks about the current state of his game, he does so with a small hint of frustration.
"Right now, I feel like I'm playing Army golf off the tee: I'm just hitting it right or left," he said, referencing an ancient golf joke.
After flirting with scores in the 70s as a junior, he's been stuck in the mid-80s as a senior. He admits that, when he competes in next week's Class 3-A Mideast regionals at Whispering Pines, he'll need the kind of round he hasn't yet had this season.
While he's not pleased, he said he isn't sweating it. Compared to the night when doctors gave him a 5 percent chance to see sunrise, errant tee shots just don't carry quite the same weight.
Less than two years ago, Smith suffered a traumatic brain injury in a skateboarding accident. He spent a week in a coma, a month-plus in the hospital, and even more time working back toward a sense of normalcy.
The half-dollar-sized scar at the base of his throat and another smaller one on his torso - both from tubes jammed into him during his stay in intensive care - are the only visible reminders of his ordeal.
Visually challenged
Just as he begins to tell how the familiar rhythms of golf were something that aided his recovery, he pauses and takes the conversation back a step.
"You know about my eyesight, right?" he asks, then explains that he's legally blind.
A rare condition known as Stargardt disease robbed Smith of most of his sight. He was diagnosed in elementary school and was considered legally blind by the time he reached his teens.
His mother, Melissa Smith, said he's not one to make a big deal out of it. Jesse, she said, would rather focus on getting by.
Teachers give him assignments with large print that he still has to hold inches from his face to read. He has a driver's license, but it has a long list of state-mandated restrictions.
On the golf course, Smith said he can see the ball on the ground and when it leaves his club. After that, he relies on fellow players or a designated spotter to help him find it. But with a swing he's kept smooth since he took up the game at 10 with his father, the shots usually don't stray too far.
"The first time I played with him, I didn't really know him," teammate James Westfall said. "He hit a shot right on the green and he was like, 'Where'd that go?' "
A confused Westfall thought he was kidding.
"I was like, 'You didn't see it?' " Westfall said.
Gray's Creek coach Jonathan Eason said Smith's teammates look up to him.
"He can't see and maybe shouldn't be here, and he can hit the ball better and farther than I can," Eason said.
Everything goes black
Vision was something Smith long ago learned to manage. But on Aug. 19, 2010, he found himself facing a more daunting challenge.
On one of the final nights of summer vacation, Smith and three friends were killing time playing tennis on some asphalt courts in Hope Mills. As the matches were breaking up, a friend brought out a Ripstik, a two-wheeled variation of a traditional skateboard. Smith wanted to give it a try.
What happened next is a mix of hazy recollections and blanks he filled in months later.
He remembers losing his balance and seeing the board fly up. He doesn't remember plowing into the pavement, his left shoulder hitting first, then the side of his head.
He remembers coming to after what friends said was 30 seconds of unconsciousness. He remembers a nervous call to his mother, and after stopping at an urgent care center that was closed, an even more nervous trip home. He said the light that once flooded his eyes had dimmed to narrow shafts that flickered and danced. Once he got home, he began vomiting and the world went black again.
It stayed that way for seven days.
He was told later that he had ruptured blood vessels in his brain, which resulted in intense bleeding. After emergency surgery, which involved removing a part of his skull, doctors told his parents that he may not make it through the night: They put his chances for survival at 5 percent.
And even if he did make it, the damage was so severe that some of the best scenarios left him stuck in something far from a normal teenage life.
"You just can't believe those words," Melissa Smith said.
He was also told that while he was locked in a medically induced coma, a steady stream of visitors kept his hospital room at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center alive with activity. His youth minister, Clif Williams of Green Springs Baptist Church in Parkton, was a constant presence who led bedside prayers.
Slowly, the world began to creep back in.
Smith winced in pain when a hospital staffer tried to replace one of the many tubes inserted in his body, the first sign that he was coming out of his coma. Soon, he was awake. He was heavily drugged, unable to keep his head up and weighed just 110 pounds, but he was awake.
Over the next few weeks, Smith began to click off small goals: Sitting on the side of the bed, graduating to taking a few tentative steps, then walking the length of the hospital hall and back.
"To know he's going to make it and that he's doing quite well, it's like the biggest weight in the world lifted off your shoulders," Melissa Smith said.
Thirty-four days after Smith's accident, he was released from the hospital. It was another two months before he returned to school, and once there, he eased back into his normal patterns. That included rejoining the golf team, which began play that February.
Those around him talk about his recovery with an understandable sense of astonishment. His doctors told him they hadn't seen an injury so severe among the people who survived. His mother calls him a "miracle."
Moving forward
Much like the way he discusses his vision handicap, Smith talks of his skateboarding accident with ease. It was just another obstacle to overcome.
"They say that you're supposed to change when you hit your head that hard," Smith said. "I really feel like I'm the same person I was. . I go to church every Sunday and every Wednesday. I don't take anything for granted like I would before."
Now, if he could figure out his tee shot.
Smith said he believes the root of the problem is that he's swinging too hard. The remedy, he said, is to calm down and just focus on a smooth motion. If he can do that, he figures, he'll stand a good chance of reaching his goal, which is to play for a state title.
Of course, if he can't figure it out, don't expect it to weigh on him too heavily.
"He knows," Melissa Smith said," what it means to be truly blessed."
Staff writer Stephen Schramm can be reached at schramms@fayobserver.com or 486-3536.