Osbourn Park grad vows to ride again after stunt leaves him paralyzed

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. — For the longest time, Emily believed her older brother Ricky Chang was invincible.

Quick-witted and cool, Chang could be found most days doing tricks on his BMX bike with his buddies. In the six years he’d been riding, the worst the 2008 Osbourn Park High School graduate had ever hurt himself were a few bumps and bruises.

“He was my hero,” said Emily, a junior at OP. “He could do no wrong.”

So when Emily heard that her larger-than-life sibling had been seriously hurt in a bicycle stunt went awry, she found it incredibly difficult to believe. So difficult, that she fainted in the hospital waiting room when she heard the news.

It wasn’t until a conversation she had with Ricky after she regained consciousness that she realized the magnitude of what happened.

Ricky was laying flat on a hospital bed with a “halo” supporting his neck and head. He asked Emily to touch his arms and shoulders to see what he could feel.

As Emily comforted him, he told her, “Don’t let me end up like Superman.”

She began sobbing and soon afterward, the hospital staff took her out of the room and back to her family.

KEEPING IT LIGHT

All superheroes could use some assistance from time to time, and Chang is no exception.

Confined to a wheelchair and with no ability to move from his chest down, Chang needs more than just drinking buddies these days. When he and his friends go out in public places, Chang needs help on the other end of a cold beverage.

From time to time, he and his crew get some strange looks as they wheel into a bathroom and proceed to detach and empty out a catheter bag filled with urine. But in typical Chang fashion, he and his buds make light of the situation.

“We talked about using his catheter bag as a water balloon,” said friend and fellow BMXer James Lukas. “But I don’t think the bags would break on impact.”

Bathroom humor is a staple for the soon-to-be 21-year-old. The Jackass movies made famous by the Johnny Knoxville television shows are some of his favorites. Last fall, he and several of his friends took in the midnight showing of Jackass 3-D.

Making people laugh has been Chang’s calling card ever since mother Maria Heavener can remember. Several years ago, Heavener had recently divorced for the second time and the two were sitting in the living room.

Out of the blue, Chang told his mother, “Despite all your divorces, we turned out all right.”

TOUGH BREAK

His stepfather John Heavener described the accident, which occurred on July 19, 2008, as the perfect fall.

While executing the trick, Chang lost his balance, flipped forward over the handlebars and landed on his shoulders with his head facing the ground.

If he landed only slightly differently, the worse that could have happened would likely have been a broken collarbone. His friends tried to move him but soon had to call EMS when they realized the damage Chang may have done to himself.

His family eventually checked him in to Atlanta’s Shepherd Center, where he spent three months recovering and rehabbing at one of the South’s premier spinal cord injury facilities. Unable to swallow properly, Chang was on a ventilator for six weeks after a week in intensive care.

Eventually, he ate his first meal: spaghetti from TGIF and an Orange Crush soda – although he was craving watermelon, said Maria.

The realization of his condition was made easier thanks to the loving attention from his mother. She stayed by his side while his stepfather commuted back and forth to Atlanta on weekends.

The family also credits former Shepherd chaplain Kenneth Grosch for keeping his spirits up. Part non-denominational minister, part new age healer, Grosch made an immediate impact on Chang.

Staying strong emotionally and believing things will get better is crucial for someone in Chang’s state, said Grosch. He should know. Before she met him, Grosch’s wife was paralyzed in a horrific skydiving accident. Not only did she eventually get full usage of her limbs, she became a championship-caliber wind surfer, said Grosch.

“The people that seem to have miraculous recoveries are not living in that box [of acceptance],” Grosch said. “Ricky didn’t live inside that box. When he saw me, he was outside the box even though his body was in it.”

TAKING IT IN STRIDE

It’s September of 2010, more than two years after the accident, and Chang is drawing a picture of man’s private parts, much to the amusement of his occupational therapists at Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fisherville, Virginia.

It’s not that Ricky is taking his rehab lightly. He’s just trying to make the best of his situation.

Wilson physical therapist Kate Baxter called Ricky a fairly quiet guy that didn’t seem to get too stressed out about anything and was “surprisingly upbeat in a fairly realistic way.”

“I see people that are upbeat but deep down [I know] that is a front,” Baxter said. “I don’t feel like it’s as much a front [with Ricky]. It’s just the type of person he is. He takes what comes, knows what can’t be changed and is kind of trying to move on.”

At first, he had limited motion of his left arm and nothing with his right until five months later. His motion on both arms is now considerably stronger, which gives him the ability to feed himself, use the computer and push his chair.

During the six-week stint at Wilson this fall, he improved rapidly. In just three tries and with limited assistance, Chang was able to put on a T-shirt. And by the end of his stay, Chang was able to travel a mile in his semi-automated wheelchair in just 40 minutes.

The wheelchair has a sensor that helps accentuate the pressure he’s able to apply to the wheels with his hands in order to go faster or to go up hills.

WHAT LIES AHEAD?

Chang knows he has a long road ahead of him and isn’t always content. As winter set in this year, he admitted that at times, he suffers from the seasonal blues and lacks the motivation to do exercises to keep his muscles toned.

He longs for the freedom of his own place and a chance to go college. This may happen by the summer but it depends largely on the amount of financial assistance from the state he’s able to receive in order to fulfill his dream of being a graphic artist, said Maria.

In the meantime, he will resume therapy later this month at Baltimore’s Kennedy-Krieger, where he spent a good portion of time rehabbing in 2009. Any day now, Chang is also expecting the arrival of a specially trained service dog, which will help him with his day-to-day activities.

And the family will continue to raise funds to help make Chang’s life more comfortable. This Mother’s Day, the Heaveners are planning to host a raffle with proceeds going to the National Transplant Assistance Fund South Atlantic Spinal Cord Injury Fund.

The family has spent thousands on medical care and equipment for Chang but, unfortunately, earn too much money to be eligible for some of the assistance available for disabled adults, said Maria.

For the first couple of years after the accident, Maria kept a journal on Ricky’s progress on a website called Carepages.com. Much of it was done while Ricky was staying in Atlanta.

Under Ricky’s Story, he states, “I will ride again. I promise.” True to his word, his BMX still sits in his room, sporting little evidence of its involvement in a life-altering crash.

And his personality is nearly as unblemished as his bike despite the hand he’s been dealt in life.

“I am the king of funny faces,” Ricky wrote in the journal. “The “puppy” one is the one my Mom can’t resist so I can get away with whatever I want!”