What did Chase Kear fall on while pole vaulting?
From an article in November, 2008 detailing the incident and his homecoming: A Hutchinson Community College student injured while pole vaulting heads home after more than a month in the hospital. Chase Kear suffered a head injury Oct. 2 during a track and field practice at Gowans Stadium. The sophomore left Wesley Medical Center in Wichita on Friday and headed to his home in Colwich. He got an escort from Colwich police and fire fighters, and a house full of friends and family greeted him. His mother, Paula Kear, says doctors told the family not to expect him to make it after the accident. She says she didn’t think his homecoming would come so soon. But his recovery isn’t over. He has to attend outpatient rehabilitation about five days a week. He also needs surgery to put a ceramic plate in his head to protect his brain. Sources: http://www.wibw.com/localnews/headlines/34930369.
The Kear family says Kapaun’s role in Chase Kear’s survival 57 years later began about two hours after their son was injured. Chase, a member of the Hutchinson Community College track team, fell on his head during pole vaulting practice in October. By the time a helicopter delivered him to Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus, his family was already frantically praying as they watched the helicopter land. Within an hour of that landing, Paula Kear’s sister, Linda Wapelhorst, was asking a priest at St. Francis to perform the Catholic sacrament of anointing the sick, which used to be called last rites. And she was calling Sacred Heart Church in Colwich, asking people there to get everyone in the church praying to Father Kapaun for help. In the following days, Grundmeyer and others had told the family that Chase’s skull had been cracked from ear to ear, that his brain was swelling, and that either the surgery to remove a skull piece or the infection that might follow wou
Chase Kear of Kansas recently survived an athletic injury and his survival is being called a “miracle.” Chase fell on his head at pole vaulting practice and had to undergo a procedure to remove part of his skull. The doctor claimed Chase had a slim chance of surviving. Paula Kear said, “Chase survived in part because hundreds of people prayed to Father Emil Kapaun to intercede on his behalf.” Father Emil Kapaun died in 1951, yet he’s performing miracles? I think not. Just the notion of that being possible is ridiculous. Where’s the credit to the doctors and nurses who are the reason Chase is alive? Without them no god or chaplain or anyone else could have saved Chase; he would be dead. Sources: http://www.examiner.
