Teen Displays Inspiring Resolve

The foot that sent Lakeland High School’s football soaring a record-setting 49 yards is still.

Neil Gustafson may never kick again. An accident last September near his Rathdrum, Idaho, home left the 18-year-old sports hero with little life below his neck.

But his spirit is so strong, his doctors already have swallowed their predictions several times.

“I decided I wouldn’t stop until I could walk again,” Neil says, flashing an irresistible smile. “Never say die.”

Neil was a passenger in a car that crashed into a parked semi. Doctors replaced his shattered vertebrae with bone from his hip and inserted a metal plate in his broken neck.

When he awakened a week later, he couldn’t move.

“I thought it was the room. If I could just get out of that room, I could walk,” he says.

He spent 14 weeks at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane. When he arrived, he had no muscle control, couldn’t feed himself, couldn’t hold himself up. Nurses strapped him in an electric wheelchair for safety. For pool therapy, he wore four life jackets.

True to his life of sports training, Neil never gave in.”A lot of people were depressed being there, but I had a lot of fun, made a lot of friends,” he says, working his shoulders even as he sits.

Now, Neil pushes himself in a manual wheelchair. He sits erect. His hands don’t work well yet, but he has adapted and can feed himself. He swims without help.

This week, he starts driver’s training in a car fitted with hand controls. By summer, he plans to water-ski, race in a wheelchair and play quadriplegic rugby. Next fall, he’s heading to college to study sports medicine.

Eventually, he’ll walk, he says.

His mother rolls her eyes.

“It hasn’t slowed him down a bit,” she says, shaking her head but smiling at the son she nearly lost.

“I just work every day. I’m not afraid to try new things,” Neil says. “I’ve always wanted to win.”

Culture shock

Thanks to electricians Mike Penkunis, Rick Roukema, Sam Kimball and the North Idaho Apprenticeship Program, Coeur d’Alene’s Cultural Center is about to open. They donated the wiring work.

The center still needs drywallers and insulation people to finish the job. Call 772-7734 and let’s get this place going.

Penny pincher

Sue Millard’s nose for a good buy helped win her the Panhandle Health District’s Employee of the Year award for 1995.

District Director Larry Belmont says Millard finds the best prices for supplies and keeps tight reins on purchases. Thanks, Sue - you’re saving money for all us taxpayers.

St. Mike

The Idaho State Lab’s Mike Brodwater is such a good boss that Peggy Albertson has nominated him for sainthood. Look at the people he has to work with, she says, and he remains sane.

David Cooley says his boss, Dave Mallery, manager of the probation and parole office in Coeur d’Alene, is best. “He’s a unique blend of Clint Eastwood, Father Dowling and certainly Woody Allen,” Cooley writes. Sure, but does he spring for lunch?

Offbeat fun

The downhill boat races in Nordman last month get my vote for the most offbeat event in the Panhandle. Is there something more bizarre than shooting down a snow-covered slope in a dressed-up boat?

What’s the wackiest get-together in North Idaho? Give me names, dates, photos. Tune me into something strange by sending a description to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; fax to 765-7149 or call 765-7128.