MUKILTEO – Joe Pyles is walking on crutches, his right pant leg dangling where his own leg used to be.
He can’t see where he’s going. He’s blind, at least for now.
The 15-year-old Mukilteo boy was critically injured May 17 when he slammed into a parked sport-utility vehicle while riding his longboard down a steep hill. A longboard is a larger, faster version of a skateboard.
Joe spent nearly a month in a coma. Every bone in his face was broken, and he suffered a punctured liver and ruptured spleen.
But he admits he loves the rush of going fast. He wants to feel it again.
“I really want to get the prosthetic and try snowboarding again. I really don’t want to give that up,” he said.
After 21/2 months of hospitalization, Joe Pyles came home on July 27.
He still feels depressed sometimes. Doctors aren’t sure if he’ll see again. But the support of his friends and family is keeping him going.
Almost every day, as many as 20 friends come over to visit him.
“We just kind of crack jokes and hang out,” said friend Clay Harris, 16.
“He’s back to being 15 again,” said John Pyles, Joe’s dad. “He’s a whole lot better than we expected.”
In the hospital, when Joe wasn’t busy with rehabilitation, a steady stream of friends came to visit.
Joe said he knew he had good friends, but he didn’t know how good.
“Until the accident I didn’t know we were that close,” he said.
His friends have helped raise about $6,500 for his medical expenses so far. It’s a nice gesture, John Pyles said, but his expenses are already more than $1 million. And that doesn’t include the cost of a prosthetic.
To prevent an infection from spreading after the accident, doctors amputated Joe’s right leg. The teen was first told about it while in a “dream state” for about 12 days after waking up.
“I was more kind of in denial about it, because I was just so out of it,” he said.
When he realized his leg was gone, he felt “more scared than anything,” he said.
Joe doesn’t remember the accident itself. He sneaked out of the house about 12:30 a.m., and the accident happened around 4 a.m.
“I went to my friend’s house that night. And then I remember longboarding before the accident. I was going to the place where it happened, but I don’t remember actually crashing.”
Based on his injuries, doctors estimate Joe was traveling more than 50 mph at impact.
Joe had been longboarding for about two years, and skateboarding since he was 8. But he’d never attempted anything like that hill before.
“That’s one of the biggest hills in Mukilteo,” Joe said. “Probably wasn’t the best time to try it out. That’s the fastest I’ve ever gone before. I mean, that’s almost highway speed.”
After the accident, Joe’s father urged Mukilteo City Council members to ban use of longboards by people under 18. The council agreed to consider John Pyles’ suggestion, but has yet to take action.
Pyles pledged to go on a crusade to educate the public about longboards and to restrict their use. The boards’ speed compared to regular skateboards is too great to be harnessed by young ones, he said.
Skateboarders’ backlash to John Pyles’ published comments was strong. Any mode of transportation is only as safe as the person operating it, they said.
Joe feels the same way.
“Me and my dad have different feelings about it,” he said. “My opinion is, I’d rather crash longboarding than crash in a car or any other way. I want people to have the fun that I did, just not the experience I went through.”
Active all his life, Joe played for the Kamiak High School football team as a freshman and regularly played pick-up baseball and basketball. In addition to snowboarding, he plans to go tandem skydiving with a friend for their 16th or 18th birthdays.
Whether he’ll get on a longboard again, he’s not sure.
He’s currently spending about three hours a week in rehab, working on strengthening and balance exercises. Joe and his dad are currently talking to a doctor about a prosthetic leg, his father said.
He’s anticipating resuming a guitar class when he returns to Kamiak as a sophomore in the fall.
It helps to have things to look forward to, Joe said. But that’s not his biggest solace.
“I’d say it’s more my friends right now that are keeping me going, and my family.”
Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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