Heroic Act Just The Beginning Courage That Saved A Child Now Must Be Summoned Daily

On the first day of the New Year, Tom Higgins scooped a 7-year-old boy he’d never met from the path of a speeding sledder a moment too late to save himself.

The sled slammed into Higgins. He and the boy flew into the air. The boy landed - without his boots - unharmed. Higgins lay face down in the new-fallen snow.

This is really bad, Higgins told his wife, Loretta, as she knelt beside him. Call 911. Don’t move me.

Higgins, 37, was paralyzed from the neck down. A clinic nurse with Group Health, he knew it the instant it happened.

Ten weeks have passed and people are still saying Tom Higgins was a hero, saving a stranger from injury. What they don’t know about is the courage he’s summoned since.

Higgins was in Holmberg Park that day with Loretta and their three sons: Kris, 12; Jon, 11; and TJ, 6. As the fire engine, ambulance and then a helicopter showed up at the park, the boys tried to stay out of the way. But as Tom was loaded onto the helicopter, Kris could stand it no more. He needed to see his dad. He kissed his father and told him the most important thing: I love you.

The helicopter rose, vanished.

In Tom’s memory of that day, those words are so bright they fill his eyes with tears.

At Deaconess Medical Center there was an X-ray, CATSCAN, MRI and a decision for surgery to deal with a bulging disc. A doctor told Tom and Loretta that he had hyperextended his neck, bruising his spinal cord.

As Tom was wheeled into an elevator, headed for the operating room, fear closed ranks.

“I can’t do this,” he said.

After nearly 15 years of marriage, that wasn’t the kind of thing Loretta expected from his lips. Tom is a well of positive energy, of fun. Just before the accident, he was laughing.

But as the elevator doors shut, she understood the depth of his terror.

“Until that point, I thought it would be all right,” said Loretta, 38. “Until then, I never imagined paralysis.”

Out of surgery, Tom went into intensive care. His neck was in a collar. Tubes into his body. Wires on his skin. A ventilator in his mouth. And his body splayed on a bed, the limbs held by pads. The bed mechanically rocked side to side to help keep his lungs clear and bed sores at bay.

Loretta came to the door of this room and stopped.

“Oh my God. I just wanted to drop to the floor. I just couldn’t believe that was him,” she said.

She stepped in and put her hand on his arm. She loved him. She wouldn’t leave him - she told him these things.

Doctors told Loretta the first 72 hours after the accident would be when they learned what movement and feeling Tom would have. Three days passed. He could barely shrug.

In the ICU, Higgins was surrounded by technology counting the beat of his heart and helping him breathe. He was terrified. The ventilator in his mouth made him mute.

“I felt like all I have is this inch-wide tube keeping me alive. What if it got plugged? I couldn’t cough,” he said. “How would I call for help?”

After a month in the ICUs of Deaconess and Sacred Heart, Higgins was finally transferred to St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute.

Every day there brought lessons and gifts including a friendship with the family of the boy he saved.

In early February, Tom’s mother-in-law and Loretta’s stepmom, Cathy Malone, brought him a strawberry-flavored Slurpee.

“I hadn’t eaten or drank in six weeks,” Tom said. “Just the sound of it - Slurpee - that was so soothing.”

It was a lesson in the value of things.

“People don’t appreciate what they have,” Tom said. “Fresh air. A drink of cold water. A bite - just a bite - of something that tastes good. I took everything for granted, like being able to hug my children and my wife. Not any more.”

Then there were lessons in the value of love.

“Every single time my wife comes to see me it is a boost and turning point. I wait for her every day. She is the rock I need,” Higgins said. “Without her I couldn’t do this.”

Then gifts arrived - that’s what Loretta calls them - gifts of movement in muscles, toes, fingers.

After six weeks of the hardest work in his life, Higgins can wiggle some fingers on his left hand. It is a tiny movement, like the twitch of a sleeping man. He can flex his biceps and triceps and slightly move his wrists. From his toes to his hip, there is movement in his left leg. It is small, but it is worth celebration.

And then there were the gifts from friends and strangers - cards, food, flowers. Schools have thrown fund-raisers. The community has pitched in to help remodel the Higgins’ tri-level house so Tom can come home. It’s hard for the family to keep count of all the help that has come their way.

“It’s been so overwhelming, I can’t even begin to express my thanks,” Tom said.

Every day Tom hears the disclaimer in the voices of his doctors and therapists: This may be all the movement you get. Today might be the last day things get better.

“You don’t look to the future,” Loretta said. “You’re thankful for what he has.”

In the beginning, Tom looked no further than an hour ahead. After two months, he looks no more than one day into the future.

But he wears a small, braided bracelet on his wrist - the same bracelet everyone in his family wears.

Woven into the strands are four small, square beads - letter blocks - with a simple reminder, a promise, a prayer: H-O-P-E.

This sidebar appeared with the story:

HOW TO HELP

Higgins fund

A fund to help Tom Higgins is set up at United Health Services Credit Union, 613 S. Washington or 1212 W. Francis.