Injured umpire has homecoming

At a season-opening Pony League baseball game Monday at East Valley High, home-plate umpire Matthew Lane ignored the wind and the cold, hollering “Play ball.”

For the players, it meant the game was set to begin. For Lane, it meant his yearlong recovery from an accident, where he was hit by a car while bicycling, had reached another milestone.

“I was an absolute bundle of nerves,” Lane said, “but it was a massive joy knowing I was going to be able to do it. I was shaking up until the time I pointed and said, ‘Play ball.’ It’s always been that way. When I say ‘Play ball,’ the rest of the world just disappears.”

Lane’s world turned upside down on April 13, 2006. He was combining two of his passions – bicycling and umpiring – as he pedaled in the bike lane, with umpiring gear in a bag on his back, on Upriver Drive en route to East Valley High School to work a game. A car coming in the opposite direction swerved across the centerline and struck Lane, sending him first into a concrete barrier and then airborne into a chain-link fence that separates the Centennial Trail from the river. Lane later learned that the 72-year-old driver had suffered a diabetic reaction.

Asked to recount his injuries, Lane replies, “OK, I’ll start with the left side, from the bottom.” He then details his dislocated ankle, torn ligaments in his knee, broken hip and pelvic bone, two broken ribs, ruptured spleen, collapsed lung, partially torn kidney, compound fracture and dislocation of pinky finger, two broken bones in his hand and shattered left forearm. His right side suffered a fractured ankle and vein damage, torn ligaments in his knee, dislocated hip, bruised ribs, concussion and bruised temporal lobe.

Before his parents were able to see him at Deaconess Medical Center, a doctor took them into a nearby family room.

“And I said, ‘Uh oh, this is serious,’ ” Joyce Lane recalled. “One of the doctors told us all the different injuries and each time he said another one, I just felt worse. … I knew he was hurt bad because of the way they were working on him.”

Lane, 35, believes his helmet and the quick response of emergency medical personnel saved his life. When he awoke in the hospital, he was able to move only his right arm. He underwent three surgeries shortly after the accident and six more since. He’ll have more procedures on his knees, but he’s delaying those until the conclusion of baseball season.

“I didn’t think he’d ever walk again,” said friend Gary Broadbent, who assigns Pony League umpires. “It was bad, really bad.”

Lane spent 16 days at Deaconess before being transferred to Alderwood Manor nursing home. Breakthroughs in his recovery began modestly when he was able to twitch a toe on his left foot. Motivation came in many forms, but a key one was supplied by Broadbent.

“I was given a choice by a physical therapist who basically said I could lay there and give up, or I could listen to the guy that came to visit and told me if I was able to, I’d be able to umpire opening day,” Lane said. “When Gary said that, I thought about it for a couple minutes and it just popped into my head: ‘I’ll see you next year.’ It’s been stuck in my head since he said it.”

Broadbent was cautiously optimistic.

“At the time, he was in bed with IVs and casts and stitches and everything else,” he said. “When we discussed coming back, I said, ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ but I did tell him, ‘If you do come back, I can guarantee you the first game.’ “

Lane wasn’t able to put weight on his left side until September. His rehabilitation included working on parallel bars and using a platform walker that prevented him from putting pressure on his left side. On Father’s Day in June, he surprised his dad, Walter, with a card and a message inside: “Take Me Home.”

“He started crying,” Joyce Lane said. “Everybody else knew but him.”

Another breakthrough came when Lane attended his grandmother’s church in Blanchard, Idaho.

“She came and visited me in the hospital and a couple from her church that didn’t even know me,” said Lane, an apartment manager until the time of the accident, who plans on returning to school to study video game design. “Outside the church, I decided, ‘Let’s leave the walker behind’ and my grandma grabbed my arm and we walked into church together.”

About a month ago, Lane told Broadbent he thought he would be able to umpire. Broadbent had the option of seven locations, but intentionally scheduled Lane’s debut at East Valley High, the same field he was scheduled to work on April 13, 2006, “to exorcise some demons.”

Lane wears knee braces – “the same ones Matt Hasselbeck wears” – and instead of jogging, he does more of a “faster walk, almost sideways.” He still has numbness in his right foot and left thigh. By the end of the game, he was sore and his ankle was swollen, but he enjoyed every minute. Coaches on both teams complimented his umpiring.

Lane will probably go out to dinner tonight with his family in observance of what he calls his “second birthday, my real one and the date of the accident.” Another gift will come Sunday. He’s scheduled to work a doubleheader.