Leaving blood by the wayside
By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
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Jason Rogers brandishes his bronze medal in the 100m at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games |
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts-SEVENTEEN days before Christmas, Jason Rogers lied on the side of the road near Stone Fort, clutching a gaping wound in his hamstring and wondering if he would ever run again.
What a gift.
The cool blue sky he looked up at must have seemed deceptively tranquil; the early morning sun having not yet gathered its oppressive Caribbean heat. It must have looked tranquil to Jason, if he blocked out the war-zone moans of the nearly 20 other injured persons waiting in agony for help.
Maybe it even looked like heaven smiling down on him, if he blocked out the blood staining the cracks and crevices of his palms.
***
Two months prior, the 17-year-old’s palms were gathered in a tense arch and his fingertips held the weight of his body as he lined up for the biggest race of his career.
Before blocking up, the Sandy Pointer had gone through his usual warm-up routine.
“Mostly I thought about being aggressive. Being aggressive brings up a lot of energy. It keeps you from being frightened because that can throw you off,” he recalled.
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The ‘Chucky’ and ‘Rambo’ omnibuses collided at maximum velocity, injuring nearly twenty persons |
He had to be aggressive if he had any hope of winning. This was no ordinary race. It was the 100m Finals of the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, India.
With the best sprinters from 71 former British territories competing before as many as 20,000 fans, it is easy to understand how a young sprinter from tiny St. Kitts-Nevis could become intimidated.
“Yeah it was kind of scary,” he said, “but after I realized the position I was in from doing well [in the preliminaries] I started to become more confident and less frightened.”
So he took his mark in lane six next to teammate Allistar Clarke and let his eyes trace up the red track before him to the finish line 100m away. There were runners from England, Australia, Nigeria, Gambia and Canada eyeing the same line, coveting that same gold medal, but Jason knew that they were nothing. He had seen them run and knew they didn’t have his God-given speed.
Perhaps he thought about redemption after barely missing the finals in the 100m of the 2008 CARIFTA Games, or about continued success from the bronze medal he helped win as a part of the 4x100m relay at the Central American-Caribbean Senior Championships in Colombia. Either way, Jason felt secure in his ability to run fast.
He relaxed the tension in his shoulders and waited for the gun.
***
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Jason’s brother, Jornal ‘Al’ Rogers, despondent at the scene of the bus crash |
The entire incident unfolded in a split second, with the same violence, fury and speed of the starter pistol that had signaled a new era for him. This thunderous clash of lurching metal and shattering glass was an ominous antithesis to his every dream and childhood fantasy of track and field stardom.
‘Rambo’, a minibus, had been driving toward Sandy Point, impatiently attempting to overtake a car. Undoubtedly, the driver of ‘Rambo’ had fearlessly pulled the stunt before, but this time there was no room for such guerilla tactics. It collided head-on with the oncoming, capacity-filled minibus ‘Chucky’.
Sitting in the second row of ‘Chucky’, Jason was on his way to Basseterre from Sandy Point to attend school at the Newrish Nital Institute of Learning – a venture largely organised by his coach, Stewart Joseph – so he would be academically ready for university in the fall. Joseph had been working to finalise a sports scholarship contract with either the University of Houston or Florida State University.
“I kind of glimpsed it happening because I was on my phone. When I looked up from texting, I saw the bus.
“I didn’t really think anything when it happened. I just tried to hold on tight. All of the seats broke in,” Jason recounted of the horrific scene.
“Truth is, when it happened I thought I was the only one alive because everybody else was on the ground and nobody was moving.”
Sitting stunned in the drawn out seconds after the crash, Jason initially felt no pain.
“My brother, who was sitting in front of me, called my name. So, I got up and opened the door. Then I looked down and saw blood dripping down on my shorts.”
Because Jason had braced himself for the impact, he remained rigid and when the seats collapsed, one of the supporting bars bore through the vinyl covering and lodged itself in his hamstring.
“When I saw the blood dripping down my leg that was the first time I started to feel it burn. I couldn’t see where I was hurt because of the angle. I was walking around for awhile, but it started to get more painful and I couldn’t do that anymore so I just laid there with my brother until the ambulance came.”
Jason’s brother Jornal called their mother, Pearline Richards, who rushed to the Joseph N France Hospital not knowing what to expect but terrified none the less. When she reached the trauma ward she began to catch wind of rumours that the son she had taught how to run (“The 100m was mine growing up,” she said) had suffered a major injury to his hamstring.
“That is when I started to worry a lot,” she said. “When I saw it, I said ‘my God, what a cut’, and as an athlete I didn’t know how it would affect him.”
The same panic had taken over Jason sometime prior when Jornal described the gash to him as a “bad diamond-shaped cut”.
“While I was in there waiting in the hospital doctors would come in and when they would see me they would be like, ‘oh, gosh!’ – that made me get a bit more fearful because I couldn’t see it at all.”
According to one study on hamstring injuries published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, as many as 47% of athletes who receive significant strains to the hamstring region let their sporting activity fall by the wayside.
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“It was Jason’s race to lose,” Coach Stewart said of his performance in the Commonwealth Youth Games upon the team’s return to St. Kitts.
“Jason went to India at 70 or 80 percent. He could not train the three weeks before India; that is what people don’t realize,” Stewart said, noting that his star athlete had strained his back playing basketball.
Indeed, the 17-year-old was easily trouncing his competition in India until he let up in the final 20 meters and was passed by Sri Lanka’s Shehan Sadaruwan Abeypitiyage and Gambia’s Suwaibou Sanneh.
Most athletes would have been ecstatic to win the Federation’s first medal at such a difficult competition, even if it was a bronze, but Jason is not like most athletes.
“When I won the medal, I felt good but I also felt like I did better coming into the finals,” he said outside of the Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport in October, his face a mix of mild disappointment and extreme jetlag.
“I felt kind of disappointed because I had the race won, but I gave it away. It was a good lesson because I learned to run straight through the line and never let up no matter how far in front or how far behind you are.”
It is a lesson he likely had in his mind many times as he laid bed-ridden for five days after the bus collision.
***
Jason is a lazy athlete.
You can ask his coach and you can ask his mother. They will tell you without hesitation and drag out the ‘laazzzzzy’ for emphasis.
Better yet, you can ask Jason himself and he will tell you the same thing: he is a typical young man who likes to hang out with friends. He would just as soon be seen playing basketball as he would be working out in the gym or training on the track.
His sloth makes it even more difficult not to draw comparisons to 2003 World Champion sprinter Kim Collins. Both runners, who express an aversion to training, have an unbelievable speed that naturally emits from their short and powerful bodies.
“My first encounter with Jason was at a development meet in Sandy Point about two or three years ago,” Acting President of the St. Kitts-Nevis Amateur Athletics Association Glenville Jeffers said. “We saw this extraordinary sprinter challenging the big boys like Allistar [Clarke].”
“I thought ‘Wow, this guy has talent!’ We heard from his sports day that he had run something like a 10.50 on grass,” Jeffers said with visible excitement. “That equates to maybe even a 10.30 or so on a professional track!”
Coach Joseph was hesitant to speculate on Jason’s potential, but eventually admitted that the youth has a once-in-a-lifetime kind of talent.
“When you look at Jason, you don’t like to do comparisons, but if he stays focused I could compare him to people like Kim. He is running faster than Kim was at his age.”
The question for Jason now is this: will he be able to recover from the serious injury to his hamstring?
He was fortunate enough not to tear any muscle and his trainers remain optimistic that with the correct regimen of diet and physical therapy they will be able to prevent any permanent damage from scar tissue.
***
First there was a knee injury from a hard fall playing basketball. Then there was a hip injury that kept him from running in the Turks & Caicos in 2007. Then there was a case of appendicitis that sidelined him for the rest of that year. Then there was the back injury from basketball (again) before the Commonwealth Games.
And now there is a two-inch scar in the shape of a star on the back of his thigh that reminds Jason everyday of a career seemingly defined by injury.
“None of his injuries are even track related,” Joseph said. “Sometimes you just have to wonder.”
It would be enough for the average person to concede it was not meant to be and hang up their track shoes.
Not for Jason, however.
“I think I could reach up to the top five in the world or so. One of my goals is to reach the next Olympics in 2012,” he said of his future in the sport.
If anything Jason has learned from his accident that the road to success is not as easy as he once thought. If he hopes to meet the likes of Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay in London, he is going to have to hit the gym and build up his weakened left leg that is causing additional pain to his right hip as his body tries to balance out.
“All of my injuries were God punishing me because I wasn’t using my talents,” he said, as much to himself as he did to the running tape recorder. “He wanted me to open up my eyes, and that’s what I’m doing now.”
Jason is ready to leave all of the blood and fret of that December day by the wayside, and accept the gift of a renewed determination and focus on his future.
“I’m trying to change,” he said, looking up now with a little smile. “I know I can do good.”
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