Byline: Laura Weisskopf
FORT WORTH, Texas _ Chester Juroska walked out of his son's intensive care unit hospital room, too despondent to watch the struggle continue.
His 14-year-old's lungs were filling with fluid. Adam's head was bandaged after emergency surgery to ease the bleeding in his skull. Tubes were coming out of every crevice.
Three days earlier _ April 5, 2000 _ Adam Juroska had been airlifted from Hardin-Jefferson High School in Sour Lake to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont. The doctors immediately whisked him into the operating room to alleviate the swelling of his head.
The eighth-grade pole vaulter had been practicing for the district track and field meet. It was his final attempt, a short one at 10 feet. The height didn't matter. Adam, who was wearing a helmet, hit the mat and bounced off the back, slamming his head on the concrete surface that surrounded the pit.
The doctors told the Juroska family the next 72 hours would be critical. Three days later, machines started blinking and beeping as things took a turn for the worst.
"I wasn't going to watch him die," his father said.
He didn't have to. Adam woke up the fourth day after the accident. Although short-term memory was a problem, there was no permanent brain damage.
Stories similar to Adam Juroska's have been all too common recently, but without the happy ending. Three pole vaulters nationwide _ two high school and one collegiate _ have died of head injuries this spring while practicing or competing in the event. A vaulter in Seymour in northwest Texas was in a coma for more than a week after an accident this season.
The spate of accidents and the publicity they have generated have revived a push for safety measures. The sport's dangers are nothing new; efforts to curtail its hazards have been frequent but often toothless.
Virtually all coaches and vaulters agree that increasing the area and depth of the landing pit and being vigilant about the surfaces surrounding them could save lives and prevent catastrophic injuries.
One suggestion from parents and coaches is to make helmet use mandatory. The helmet Juroska was wearing probably saved his life.
He spent two more weeks, not the six the medical staff predicted, in the hospital. He was able to attend his church confirmation ceremony. Now a sophomore at Alvarado High School, he recently placed second with a vault of 11 feet, 6 inches at the District 8-3A meet.
The horseshoe scar that snakes along his scalp and some flashback memories are all that remain of the accident.
"Adam wore a helmet before, during and after this accident," said Chester Juroska, superintendent of Alvarado schools. "People have the mistaken idea now that he wears the helmet because of the accident. The helmet saved his life.
"If he had hit the concrete with his bare head instead of the helmet, there would have been no coming back. That was obvious."
Juroska started wearing the helmet after attending one of coach Don Hood's summer pole vault camps. Hood, the former Abilene Christian University track and field coach who is considered the patriarch of Texas pole vaulting, requires that all vaulters he works with wear helmets.
Most youngsters don't wear the protective headgear again. Juroska never stopped.
Few arguments exist against the use of helmets. Some claim their use might give athletes a false sense of security and, in turn, encourage reckless behavior. Hood said there is no competitive reason not to strap on a helmet.
Birdville sophomore Tommie Powers, the District 6-4A girls pole vault champion, works out with Juroska at the Vertical Assault club in Fort Worth. She doesn't wear a helmet, despite an accident last year that resulted in three skin staples for her head. She has cleared a personal best of 10-7.
"Girls, I don't think we're going high enough to actually get hurt that bad," she said. "We're going pretty high, but the guys are going higher."
Because many high school coaches don't have the specialized knowledge that the event requires to master its nuances, most of the area's top vaulters seek coaching outside of school to fine-tune their skills. One such coach is George Rodriguez, a former University of North Texas vaulter who coaches son Devin and others in the Vertical Assault club.
Vertical Assault's home base is Fossil Ridge High School, which many vaulters say has the best and the safest pit in the area. Rodriguez does not require his vaulters to wear helmets but said he's not against them.
"I do believe that if the kids are trained properly and correctly, you can prevent a lot," he said.
That view is shared by many in the pole vault community, but others believe it is not enough.
The staff of the University Interscholastic League asked the organization's medical advisory committee at a meeting Sunday to evaluate pole vault safety. The panel said it would study the issue further.
"Obviously a possibility is a recommendation one way or the other on a helmet," UIL athletic coordinator Peter Contreras said. "We're going to wait and see what direction that committee gives our staff one direction or the other."
The safety committee of the United States Track and Field Association and the NCAA will evaluate the issue and perhaps make recommendations as they convene.
The Track and Field Rules Committee of the National Federation of State High Schools Association will consider a recommendation from the National Pole Vault Safety Committee regarding landing pad requirements at its next meeting, in June, and it is likely to be approved.
The proposal increases the surface area of the landing pit and demands that there be padding to cover any "hard or unyielding" surfaces (asphalt, concrete, medal or wood) under or around the pit.
The National Federation High School track and field rulebook already recommends that hard and unyielding surfaces be covered with at least 2 inches of dense foam. Still, many high school pits don't meet the minimum compliance measures for size and padding.
"If they would cover unyielding surfaces around the pit and make kids wear helmets, I think it would prevent 99 percent of fatal accidents," Hood said.
Other safety issues include the selection of a proper pole for a vaulter and making the area around the plant box, usually metal, more protected.
Cost is always a factor when safety issues are raised. New, larger pits can cost as much as $13,000. Helmets are cost-effective, ranging from $30 to $45, although no pole vault-specific helmet has been manufactured. Most sold under the sport's guise are typically used by skateboarders.
Adam Juroska doesn't preach to his teammates about wearing a helmet. It is not required at Alvarado. But he hopes the UIL or another governing body takes action toward making the pole vault a safer sport.
"I still think people will be clueless about what's going on," he said. "They'll think, `That can't happen to me.""
He knows better.
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