Children heal beyond the greens

Editor's note: Ed Graney's column usually appears in the Review-Journal's Sports section. Graney recently traveled to Sacramento, Calif., to witness firsthand the work of the Shriners Hospitals for Children, a first-year backer of the Frys.com Open PGA Tour, which begins today.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- There is a story everywhere ...

The little boy was 8 when he and his mother went for a bike ride, when that 18-wheel semi-truck struck him with such force that part of his head became detached and his spinal cord exploded and his lungs collapsed and all his ribs shattered and his kidney was lacerated and his liver was severely damaged and he lay motionless in the street paralyzed from the eyes down. Silence overwhelmed the scene like it does when death beckons.

His C1, C2 and C3 vertebrae had separated, an injury similar to the one suffered by the late Christopher Reeve. When the little boy finally awoke from his coma, seven intense surgeries later, all he could move was both nostrils. So that's how he began to communicate with others. One flair meant yes. Two meant no. Three meant he didn't know.

Doctors hoped with years of therapy and extreme rehabilitation and several hundred Sundays worth of prayer, the boy might one day breathe on his own and push himself through life in a wheelchair. The family was then introduced to a facility that specialized in caring for children with orthopedic conditions, spinal cord injuries and burns.

That's where Kyle Greene went to heal. Here, at the corner of Stockton Boulevard and X Street.

They might as well call it Miracle Avenue.

Twelve months later, he walked out of that incredible world where the weakest among us are cared for at unfathomable heights. He is 16 now, a sophomore in high school earning A's and B's. He's an avid guitarist. He walks. He runs. He lives.

"Nothing can affect your life more than watching your child nearly die and be brought back to being normal," said his father, Roger. "The mental, emotional, physical, spiritual value of life truly changes. You don't schedule these things in life. You can't comprehend their impact. I would not wish our experience on anyone, but there are no words in the English language to describe what those people mean to us, how incredible those doctors are, the deep levels of appreciation we will always feel for each and every one of them ..."

For those who run and manage and care for the most injured and vulnerable of children at one of the most amazing places on earth.

A Shriners Hospital.

There is a story everywhere ...

The Frys.com Open begins today at TPC Summerlin and TPC at The Canyons, and it's true the local PGA Tour stop could again struggle drawing interest in a tournament that does not include Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, a fact that definitely has kept the casual golf fan away rather than supporting the annual event.

But the names of those competing wouldn't mean very much if you saw the burned little faces here, if you knew about the organization the Frys.com will benefit.

There are 22 Shriners hospitals throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, but the jewel of the family has for the past decade resided in Northern California adjacent to the UC Davis Medical Center.

The Shriners' doors are open to any child age 18 and younger whose condition is within the scope of services provided. The football player who breaks his neck. The infant born with deformities. The child trapped in a burning car.

It is seven floors worth of healing and hope, of light streaming through large windows as if pledging to those damaged children and their families that there is the possibility of rising from what feels like eternal darkness.

"You don't need us until you need us," said Margaret Bryan, the hospital's CEO who 10 years ago orchestrated the move of a smaller Shriners facility in San Francisco to the regional medical center here. "You can't live your life making sure you know exactly where to take a child if something horrible happens. It's scary.

"There are kids who need us out there. In our world, a healthy quadriplegic is good news. The numbers are stunning, extraordinary children not in the public view. We intend to put them there. This is about kids we can recover from completely vulnerable states and turn them into productive members of society. It's not every kid, but we have a better chance than anyone. It's hard to measure that."

It's hard to fathom all that this place offers.

An orthotics and prosthetics lab. Apartments for families of injured children. A kindergarten through 12th-grade public school for patients. Outpatient care that treats thousands annually. Physical and occupational therapy. A burn center. An entire sixth floor devoted to research, where scientists probe and explore and better understand how cells and molecules influence the human body, determined to discover why each burn victim reacts to trauma differently, why some suffer internal organ failure -- when the heart and lungs and kidneys shut down inside after the skin is scorched outside -- and some don't.

There are some of the world's leading doctors and specialists that live to conquer the most complex of medical conditions. A family library. An area for crafts and games and countless activities such as wheelchair basketball.

"They will do anything for you," said Evan Duran, a former Shriners patient burned over 45 percent of his body when his car caught fire after being hit by a drunken driver. "There is nothing they won't try to make you feel better and healthy again."

The remarkable part: It's free for patients and their families.

Every bit of it.

There is a story everywhere ...

The person who quietly arrives each month with a jar full of coins. The one who sent $2. The one who sent a bottle of ketchup. The elderly widow who attended a function at the hospital, saw the scarred and deformed bodies, later telephoned to say she would be sending along a little something to help and mailed a check for $1 million.

This is what those Masons from New York had in mind back in 1870, to create a special group devoted to fun, fellowship and philanthropy. To make their assemblage of Shriners be known for far more than the fez -- a rhombus-shaped, tasseled red hat.

There is no continuous stream of bureaucratic hurdles to scale at a Shriners hospital, no mountains of headaches and heartache often caused by medical insurance coverage. Have it. Don't have it. Doesn't matter. It's not needed.

The endowment fund was established in 1922 and is supported by gifts, bequests and contributions to fund what is a $721 million budget for all 22 hospitals in 2007. Most who give remain anonymous, more concerned with making a difference for children than for themselves.

"I'm a businesswoman," Bryan said. "It is my responsibility to be an unbelievable steward of this endowment. We aren't just throwing resources all over the place. We want to do everything we can for every child today and make sure we have the resources to do so for that child next week or next month or next year.

"What we do is incredibly costly. We have served over 34,000 kids here the (last decade) and I guarantee there are 34,000 more we don't know about yet. "But I am continually amazed at the generosity of people who want to help once they learn about us."

There is a story everywhere ...

The one about a young mother who ran into a store searching for party favors and left the car running with her two children and a young cousin inside. A man walked out of the store, flicked a cigarette and the car exploded, killing one of the children and disastrously burning the other two. The one about the 5-year-old little girl squirming out of her car seat and ending up a quadriplegic when her parents were involved in an accident. The stories are endless.

Bryan remembers one in particular:

It was around 12 years ago when as part of the transition from San Francisco she went to the Shriners Hospital of Cincinnati to meet with Dr. David Greenhalgh about coming west to serve as the chief of burns for the new facility, a position he still holds.

During her visit and while accompanying Greenhalgh on rounds, the doctor got a phone call and stepped away. A young boy in Indiana had been burned over 90 percent of his body from a propane tank explosion and a referring doctor was asking whether Shriners could receive the child.

"(Greenhalgh) came back after the call and told me the child would never live," Bryan said. "So I asked him why he took the referral. He looked and me and said, 'Because if a child has to die and a family has to go through that tragedy, there is no better place than a Shriners hospital.'

"That level of honoring and respecting the process is at the heart of what we do. There is no step we won't take to help a child or that family recover."

The Frys.com Open begins today and Tiger and Phil aren't here. But far more important than who will be playing golf is the organization that will benefit from it.

If you saw the burned little faces, you'd understand.

Ed Graney can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.