Pictures of William Truong’s physical accomplishments have a special place on the walls of the Esperanza High weight room.
It’s the room where he’s expended hours of effort and sweat; the room where Truong, a football player and shot putter, became one of the strongest athletes in school history.
The photos of Truong, taped up by the school’s coaches, are evidence of what he did over the last four years. They’re also a message: Work hard, the photos say, and you too can strive to be great.
But these days the pictures leave Truong with mixed emotions. They are a reminder of what he was, what he could do.
That is the pain Truong lives with as he recovers from a broken neck sustained in a trampoline accident a little more than two months ago. At that time, his doctors weren’t sure if he would walk again.
Although he has made strides since that nightmarish accident, Truong is pushing to regain everything he had. And he had a lot.
That’s why, on a humid morning in August, the 18-year-old is back in Esperanza’s weight room. He is wearing a neck brace; he’s lost a considerable amount of strength. But he’s pushing himself as hard as ever.
And that’s when it happens.
As Truong attempts a standing lift, his balance, hindered by the injury, betrays him. The weight suddenly becomes too heavy, and throws him backward to the floor.
It is a frightening flashback to two months ago. But this time, Truong picks himself off the ground and completes his lifts.
BACK FLIP
On June 9, it seemed unlikely that Truong would be where he is today.
That afternoon, two days after he finished third in the state in the shot put and three days before he was set to graduate from Esperanza – and roughly six weeks before he was supposed to start his entry to West Point – Truong planned to go to the beach with some friends.
Truong’s sister, Amanda, remembers what their mother said before he left the house that day.
“‘Don’t do anything stupid. … Don’t do anything stupid, like backflips,’ ” Amanda recalled.
It was the kind of warning the mother often issued to her carefree son.
On the way to the beach, Truong and his friends stopped at Jane Clyde’s house to pick up ice. While the group of teenagers went into the home, Truong ventured into the backyard to check out the Clydes’ trampoline.
The 6-foot-2, 250-pound Truong was fixated on learning how to execute a backflip. A friend had told him that he should start off attempting backflips on a trampoline.
On his first attempt on the trampoline, he said, he landed on his head. All of his weight crashed down with force on his neck.
“My body folded over my neck,” he said. “I flipped and hit the springs area (of the trampoline).”
Truong said he was in shock, but sure he was going to move in a matter of minutes.
“I’ve done this before, it’s just a little stinger,” he recalls telling himself.
But Truong didn’t move. His friends rushed outside after hearing his shouts for help. As others tended to him, Clyde called Truong’s mother so that she could speak to her son.
“He always (jokes), ‘Mom, I broke my leg,’” his mother, Vanessa Nguyen, said. “When he called he said, ‘Mom, my neck hurts. I don’t feel anything.’ I said, ‘No. Don’t say that, I don’t believe that.’ And after that he almost cried. And that’s when I believed (him).”
Before the ambulance took him to Western Medical Center, Clyde’s mother, Becky, grabbed Truong’s toe and asked if he could feel her. He said he could.
On a day clouded with darkness, a feeling in his toe was a small beacon of hope.
STANDING OVATION
The attempted back flip was expensive. Truong says he broke his C5 and C6 cervical discs, and damaged the C7, C8 and T1 discs.
His dream of playing football at West Point was all but shattered as well.
“I was in complete and total denial (at the hospital),” Truong said. “I was supposed to go to West Point. I was supposed to do all these great things.”
That first night in the hospital, he could move his arms, but still had almost no feeling in his legs. He underwent surgery on the front of his neck the next day. He was scheduled for a second surgery on the back of his neck, which he was told would essentially make or break his future, on June 12 – the day he was supposed to walk in Esperanza’s graduation ceremony.
With Truong unable to participate, Amanda, who is going to be a junior this year, donned her brother’s No. 75 football jersey and took his place in the ceremony.
The announcement of Truong’s name brought a standing ovation from the crowd. Amanda broke down in tears.
“He was the spirit of Esperanza,” she said. “He deserved to walk.”
The outpouring of support for Truong, a young man who had been a leader and an adored teammate in football and track, didn’t end there.
“He’s just the happiest person, he’s the most popular person in the whole school,” Jane Clyde said. “Will was friends with everyone.”
Esperanza football coach Gary Bowers added: “Everything he does is with a great attitude, and that makes him special. He’s always excited. He’s one of those guys you want to be around …”
Bill Pendleton, the throws coach for Esperanza’s track team, visited nearly every day. He also helped set up a website to raise funds to help pay Truong’s medical bills. By mid-August the site had raised more than $19,000.
Truong’s friends spent long hours visiting him in the hospital. They covered the walls of his rooms with posters containing words of encouragement. He also received visits and texts from athletes he had competed against.
Surrounded by all of that support and encouragement, it took just a few days for Truong’s mental state to improve.
“What the hell are you going to do?” Truong recalled thinking. “It happened already. The best thing now is, even if you can’t walk, can’t move, you still have to live with yourself …”
But deep down, Truong had other ideas.
“I knew I was going to walk again,” he said. “I told myself that every day.”
NO WHEELCHAIR
The first significant sign of recovery came on Truong’s fifth day in the hospital.
“All of a sudden, he’s lifting his arms over his head and he’s picking his left leg off the bed,” Pendleton said. “That was a big change.”
On June 18, Truong checked out of Western Medical and into Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in Pomona. Amanda recalls that when he arrived at Casa Colina, doctors told Truong he should expect to leave the rehab center in a wheelchair.
“How are you going to doubt me?” Truong said. “Come on, I’m not normal.”
The war to walk again was one that Truong was ready to fight.
“He’s not one of those guys who came from a well-off family,” Bowers said. “He’s somebody who’s had to work for everything he has got.”
During his senior year Truong, who was born in Vietnam and moved to the United States before his first birthday, often worked out three times a day, four times a week. Pendleton describes him as “off-the-charts strong.”
Fortitude served Truong well when doctors discussed his prognosis.
Dr. Ann Vasile, the medical director of rehabilitation at Casa Colina, has been working with spinal-cord injury patients for 20 years. She was tasked with helping Truong.
Vasile said Truong’s spinal trauma looked like a so-called “complete” spinal injury – which is when nerve impulses don’t pass through the injured area – when he sustained it.
But it turned out that Truong’s spinal cord was intact, leaving a chance for recovery. Within a week – around the time he was able to move his arms in the air – the diagnosis for Truong’s injury shifted from complete to incomplete.
However, the recovery process for an incomplete spinal injury can take up to three years.
At Casa Colina, Truong underwent rehab for his lower extremities. He learned how to do day-to-day things, such as getting in and out of bed, bathing and dressing.
As he faced each new challenge, his attitude grew more upbeat. He began to share comments and photos through his Twitter account.
On June 22, he posted his first hospital bed selfie. In the photo, he’s decked out in a hospital gown and neck brace and stares slightly wild-eyed into the camera. His friends got the message – Truong was on his way back; the fun was starting again.
On July 4, he tweeted, “Happy July 4th!!! Don’t play on trampolines!”
His progress continued at a rapid pace. By mid-July he was able to walk on his own. By July 16 he was discharged from Casa Colina.
He didn’t use a wheelchair.
The staff at Casa Colina deemed him the “Miracle Patient.”
“This is miraculous, it really was, to happen that quickly,” Vasile said. “In less than five or 10 percent of patients do you see this type of recovery in this short of time from how we originally presented.
“That’s pretty good odds, huh?”
GRADUATION 2.0
Truong’s release from the hospital coincided with his previously scheduled departure for West Point.
He didn’t make that.
Instead, he’ll live with family this fall in Garden Grove and attend Fullerton College. He wants to get a job to help pay for medical bills.
He’s got new priorities. Three months ago, playing college football was a dream for the high school all-league defensive and offensive lineman, but football isn’t in his future.
West Point is still an option for Truong, who plans to major in kinesiology.
He says the Army has promised to hold his appointment for two years, time he can use to improve his strength. Truong lost an estimated 40 pounds in the hospital, and can lift only about a quarter of what he could in May.
Also, he is dealing with Brown-Sequard Syndrome, which leaves one side of the body weaker than the other. His right side is coming along slower than his left.
According to Truong, he has been told he must wear his neck brace for a few more weeks. He wears it at all times now, except when he’s at home.
Back in the weight room at Esperanza, he sits on a bench with a blue bucket parked in front of him. The bucket is filled with grains of rice. Truong buries his right hand in the bucket and grasps the rice to build strength and improve the nerves in his arm.
As his friends and family, doctors and rehab workers can attest, Truong, even at his lowest point, never lost his grasp of the big picture.
“(Before) it was football (that motivated me),” he said. “Now it’s my supporters; my family, my friends, my coaches.”
Last week, those supporters were present as the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District. They held a small commencement for Truong, giving him a day he never thought he’d get back.
The ceremony acknowledged Truong’s four years at Esperanza. But it’s Truong’s accomplishments over the past two months that won’t be forgotten.
Contact the writer: amorales@ocregister.com
