Drew Donnellan's story

One of Tucson's top male gymnasts is paralyzed from the neck down after suffering spinal cord damage in a tumbling accident his coach says happens "one in a million times."

Andrew Donnellan, a sophomore at Salpointe Catholic High School, fractured two vertebrae when he landed on his head during a workout at Gymnastics World in Midtown on Friday.

He underwent a five-hour surgery at University Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon to fuse four vertebrae. He was listed in serious condition late Wednesday.

His next stop likely will be the renowned Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo., a spinal-cord-injury rehabilitation facility. He is expected to begin rehabilitation next week.

Donnellan was performing a basic forward tumble, coach Yoichi Tomita said, when he over-rotated and landed on his head.

"It happened to one of the nicest kids," said Tomita, a two-time Olympic coach and owner of Gymnastics World in Tucson. The accident is the worst Tomita has seen since opening his gym in 1979, he said.

Donnellan, 16, was taken to University Medical Center, where he was stabilized until Wednesday's surgery could be performed.

Salpointe students were told of the injury on Monday.

Donnellan's gymnastics teammates met with a counselor Wednesday evening and were encouraged to express their feelings and fears.

"It's tragic," said Mike Urbanski, a guidance counselor at Salpointe and a family friend. "Drew is just such a great kid. He epitomizes who we want our students to be. He is such a quiet, respectful, hardworking student — and such a great kid — that it's tough for us to deal with right now."

Added Salpointe athletic director Phil Gruensfelder: "It's devastating. Here's this kid who is incredibly in shape and fit, and for this to happen … ."

Donnellan's mother would not comment.

Speaking at the gym Wednesday evening, Tomita described Donnellan as one of his best athletes. He had the best finish of any Gymnastics World entrant at last month's nationals after qualifying in the parallel bars.

But more important, Tomita said Donnellan is a quiet leader who did everything that was asked of him in eight years at the gym. Donnellan had competed on the advanced team for five years and was thriving.

"He never complained about a long practice or a hard day or anything. The same with his mom," Tomita said. "He has great physical and mental strength. He got hurt — little things — but he always bounced back up."

Donnellan's strength has already helped his recovery process. Tomita said Donnellan's neck and shoulders are so strong that doctors might not fit him with a "halo" brace during recovery.

Donnellan was excited about undergoing surgery Wednesday because it meant a start to the recovery process, Tomita said.

"He was so focused and so excited to get going," he said.

Accidents resulting in paralysis are rare in gymnastics, though other injuries are not uncommon. According to USgyms.net, gymnastics had the fourth-highest frequency of injury among high school sports, at 56 percent. The majority of the injuries are considered minor, such as ankle sprains and stress fractures. Club gymnastics teams have an injury rate at 22 percent, according to the site.

University of Arizona gymnastics coach Bill Ryden said coaches do everything in their power to help prevent injuries, whether it's padding the workout facility or spotting athletes.

Gymnastics World's Midtown location is nearly covered with safety padding and outfitted with a springy floor, which aids in flips and helps to cushion falls.

"The odds are in extreme favor of the athlete," Ryden said.

The flip was routine. Drew Donnellan had done it hundreds of times, even working on a double. A few days earlier, he had tried a single, overrotated and landed on his face — his muscle memory overriding his mind. On May 12, about an hour into practice at Gymnastics World, his feet left the blue mat. He rotated once, but his body couldn't stop. He landed on his head with a dull, heavy thud.

"Andrew!" screamed his coach, Yoichi Tomita, who sprinted over from 20 feet away. Other gymnasts scattered quietly to opposite corners, like ants in a rainstorm.

Drew rolled onto his back. He felt the padding against his head, but the rest of his body felt like it was floating.

The 16-year-old stared up into the eyes of his coach of seven years.

"I can't breathe," he puffed. "I can't breathe. Help me. Help me."

Short breaths, Yoichi told him. Drew followed his coach's instructions, and soon he was able to breathe.

A doctor and a nurse — parents who had been watching their children practice from the stands — stabilized Drew's neck. Yoichi called Drew's mother, Fran. Drew is hurt, he told her. The ambulance is on the way. "You need to get here," he said.

Yoichi pinched Drew's left leg. Can you feel this, he asked?

Drew stared at him quizzically.

•••

Fran first heard about the boy who would become her son over a round of Red Stripe beers in Jamaica.

By 1989, her marriage had ended and her career at a senior-citizen care facility in Tempe had soured. At 37, needing a change, she joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Jamaica.

A 6-month-old had been abandoned at a hospital in Kingston, a friend told her.

Fran had considered becoming a single parent, but hadn't reached a final decision. Still, when she heard about Drew, she wanted to see him.

She took the bus from her post in Manchioneal to Kingston, about 20 miles away. On the bumpy roads, the journey takes almost two hours.

Fran met a malnourished Jamaican boy with bright eyes that followed her around the room. His smile belied his impoverished past.

The Dixon, Ill., native gave herself one night to think it over.

The next day, she returned to the hospital with friend and fellow volunteer Jane Little. Again, Drew's eyes followed her.

"When I met Drew," she said, "I knew that was it."

She told the hospital she wanted to adopt in late November 1990. By New Year's Day, about two months after they met, he was living with her. Drew became Fran's reason for being.

Fran became a Mother Bear. In the malnourished baby's first few weeks home with her, he started taking medication for intestinal worms. One night, he began coughing; Fran ripped a 7-inch worm from his mouth and stayed up all night with him, willing the sun to rise so she could take him to a doctor.

When she needed to go to a standpipe on a hill to draw water for the day, she'd bring her baby along, putting him in a cardboard box so he wouldn't wander off. He'd sit and play and giggle, while she scrubbed clothes in the cold water.

Many Jamaicans knew Americans as the characters they saw on soap-opera reruns.

Fran was different.

The skinny woman with red hair and sparkling blue eyes wasn't what the locals were used to seeing. She was a vegetarian who dressed Bohemian, with long skirts and a woven turquoise-colored handbag filled to the brim with everything from gum to fresh fruit.

When they took the bus around town, locals would point to Drew and say, "That's the baby from the hospital."

Fran had to stand for hours at a time on the overflowing, muggy, smelly bus. Drew didn't suffer like his mother. The locals would hold him and the little boy would smile and laugh as the bus rumbled down the road, Tracy Chapman or Michael Bolton blaring from small boom boxes.

It took 18 months for the governments of Jamaica, the United States and Arizona to sign off on the adoption.

Fran was eager to get back to the United States. Her father, a first-generation American and an "Irish nut," was in the last year of his life.

The Jamaican judge finalizing the adoption picked a name for Drew, as was the custom. He named him O'Shane McDonald. Fran, who called the baby "Andrew," changed the name to Andrew O'Shane James Donnellan. James was her father's first name.

Because Drew had no birth certificate, the judge guessed his birthday.

He picked March 17 — St. Patrick's Day.

It has to be fate, Fran thought.

•••

At age 9, having spurned tennis and soccer, Drew tried gymnastics.

For a kid with a single mother who worked 60 hours a week, it was something to do after school. The sport had no offseason. With the exception of two weeks a year — one over Christmas, the other in the summer — Drew attended gymnastics five days a week, three hours a day.

He was good at the sport. Other kids looked up to him. He made friends.

"It helped him become part of a community," Fran said.

Gymnastics helped teach Drew about hard work, focus and discipline. It chiseled him into a 5-foot-6-inch, 167-pound specimen. Even the gymnasts called him a Greek god.

With the muscles and accomplishments came confidence.

He needed it when he enrolled at Salpointe Catholic High School. Drew knew only three or four fellow freshmen when he enrolled there two years ago. Like any freshman, he worried about fitting in.

The place was nice, but sometimes strange. Once, while studying the civil rights movement, Drew looked around and realized he was the only black student in class.

As a freshman, football players would nag Drew on his way into school every day. They saw his pro-wrestler shoulders and tree stump of a neck and begged him to play football.

Drew couldn't imagine himself trying to knock somebody's head off. Inside his jock body was a sympathetic soul.

Fran nurtured that by involving her son in social issues, teaching him about one group that places water tanks in areas frequented by border crossers.

They spent their summers with friends in Canada — among Jamaicans and Dutch and foreign exchange students.

Drew wrote a poem about love when he was 13. When his favorite character from the computer game "Brothers in Arms" died, he had a watery-eyed talk with his mother about war.

Gymnastics made Drew challenge himself, the only person he ever liked competing against.

And it made him more outgoing. He became the drummer in a band, The Lemons, formed with Salpointe friends. Even after getting his driver's license in March, he walked to and from school, stopping weekly at Los Betos for his favorite — a bean burrito, rice and a large horchata.

In his eighth year of gymnastics, Drew had made it to Level 10 — the top rank in the Junior Olympic level. He was named the Gymnastics World boys team's most valuable gymnast this year. His powerful frame made him a natural at the vault and rings. He had a set of parallel bars in his room at home; one day, he snapped both bars with his sheer force. Coach Tomita kept one of them and gave Drew the other.

Over the next two years, his coach believed Drew would become one of the elite Level 10 gymnasts in the country. Drew wasn't sure he would continue gymnastics after high school.

A week before his injury, Drew participated in the USA Gymnastics Men's Junior Olympic National Championships in Battle Creek, Mich. Twenty friends and family members — including Fran's four siblings — made a vacation out of it.

They talked to Drew about what he wanted to do with his life.

He thought he knew. For Christmas, Fran bought him a trip to a weeklong film camp at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

He should have been there this summer.

•••

The ambulance screamed into the University Medical Center parking lot at around 7 the night of May 12.

A nurse from the trauma team whisked Drew away. A chaplain grabbed Fran by the arm.

Fran, who had made it to the gym just in time to see her son rolled into the ambulance, rambled to the priest, overwhelmed and scared.

A doctor in the intensive-care unit told her Drew had a severe spinal-cord injury, and he would probably never walk again. She almost fainted, and had to be propped up by a friend to finish the conversation.

"I called him 'Dr. Gloom,' " she said.

A surgeon tried to calm Fran down, telling her ICU doctors rarely see patients during recovery, so they're not in a position to judge the situation.

Drew never saw his mother cry that night. She left the room to bawl.

Doctors performed an MRI on Drew and told his mother no bone was floating near his spinal cord. That made surgery to stabilize him simpler.

Fran wanted to hold her boy. But when she touched him, Drew said, politely, "Please don't touch me."

His nerve endings were on fire.

Drew was put on steroids. The doctors gave him morphine to dull the pain. The drug made him sleepy, and with sleep came the recurring dream.

"I couldn't stop rolling and bouncing," he said, "like in the inflatable fun-house jumping castle thing. I couldn't stop.

"I could feel it in my whole body; it felt so real."

Then he would wake up and remember.

It took doctors five hours to insert screws and rods into his spinal column.

It stabilized Drew, at least physically. But life had changed forever.

Drew didn't really understand it at first. He and Fran talked late into the night, his mom trying to prepare both of them for challenges that could last the rest of Drew's life.

"This isn't going away," she said.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Drew Donnellan reaches his lips to the plastic straw sticking out of his motorized wheelchair.

He puffs hard once, and his chair edges forward. A soft puff turns right, a soft sip left. A hard sip jolts him backward.

This "sip and puff" system is Drew's link to the independence ripped from him on May 12, when he landed on his head during a flip at gymnastics practice.

One month after the accident, during rehab at Craig Hospital near Denver, the 16-year-old is living on what feels like a whole new planet.

He wears bright white K-Swiss shoes two sizes too big — to account for swelling — and medical socks to encourage blood flow.

He is 30 pounds lighter than he was six weeks earlier, the muscle mass melting away from lack of use.

He fights battles, in his chair and in his head.

"There are a lot of things about myself that I've learned," he says. "I don't know how to explain it. Unless you're trapped on a desert island — then you might understand.

"When you're on a desert island, you have to become independent and just kind of fend for yourself. You've got to become independent and try not to get so down.

"If you get so down on your injury, you die from inside. And you won't get better."

Hanging in a harness, Drew feels about as far from home — and as far from normal — as he could ever feel.

In his first few hours at Craig, the 16-year-old Tucsonan is put in a lift, a miniature crane that hoists him into his hospital bed. Nurses bustle around him while he hangs in the air. It's so different from what he was used to, where he was supposed to be.

"So far away," he says. "Weird. Horrible, knowing that everything I know and love is way out there."

The night of the accident, a surgeon at University Medical Center told his mother, Fran, to take Drew to Craig. The next day, a gymnastics dad and a UMC nurse suggested Craig.

Five days after the accident, Fran's insurance approved the trip.

Craig, one of the nation's best spinal cord and brain injury treatment centers, draws patients from 47 states every year. Former NFL players and Columbine victims have gone there.

Drew heard such glowing reports, he thought the hospital would have ceilings made of gold.

On May 23, he and Fran boarded a medical plane and flew to the Denver suburb. She stared out the window at the snow on the Rocky Mountains. Drew slept. It was beautiful, but surreal.

When they arrived at the $2,000-per-day hospital, it wasn't what Drew had imagined.

"Everyone kept saying how nice it was ... like a resort or something," he says. "For some reason, I pictured myself walking in.

"I don't know why."

Drew was diagnosed with quadriplegia, a weakening of all four extremities caused by a spinal cord injury in the cervical region. His spinal cord was bruised below the second cervical vertebrae.

Drew hasn't had leg function since the moment of his accident, when 99 percent of the damage is typically done. The message his brain sends through the spinal cord to the rest of his body is cut off at the point of injury. There is a chance he can regain some movement in his upper body, but there are no promises.

At the beginning of his hospital stay, Drew counted the days — literally — until he could go home. Ninety days, minimum.

"I started thinking about how I'm going to get home, and when I'm going to start walking and stuff like that," he says. "They were talking as if I was going to be like this forever."

"I kind of felt like, 'Hey, am I not going to get better?'

"Then my mom's like, 'You've got learn about what you have now. Just in case.' "

•••

In his first weeks at Craig, Drew dictates a list of goals to his mother.

He wants to get a certain score on his breathing test — past 1,000 five times in a row. Because of his athletic build and superior lung capacity, Drew never had to be put on a ventilator like most people with his injury. His nurse and doctor regard that as amazing.

He wants to regain enough arm function to push a manual chair on his own. The manual chair just seems more normal to him. More human.

His black motorized chair looks so foreign, a mass of wires and tubes. Every 20 minutes, Drew's upper body moves backward with the chair, reclining and moving him so he doesn't get sores.

A CamelBak — a bladder of water strapped to his back that he can sip through a straw — is slung over his shoulder.

A sling on his right arm encourages muscle development. A silver-dollar-size kill switch sits beyond his left temple, close enough to hit with his head when he wants to stop the chair. A catheter pours into a bag strapped to his leg.

The chair needs constant adjustment, and that frustrates Drew. One day, he spends two hours watching Craig employees tweak the chair, from the cushion to the footboards.

"All that time seems not wasteful," he says, "but it seems like I should be doing rehab instead of sitting there and getting knocked around.

"It seems like they're focusing more on the chair than they are getting me better. What I want them to do is focus on my arms and still focus on my legs a little."

The chair is Drew's link to the outside world — it serves as his legs. But it's also a reminder of where he is.

"It symbolizes not being able to do what I used to be able to do," he says.

The last goal on Drew's list is to be able to walk.

After a while, Drew and Fran leave the list sitting on the table in his room. Drew's goals, they decide, are not ones that can be checked off a slip of paper like a teacher grading a math test.

"Those aren't really goals you can work to," he says. "If I can walk again, getting movement in my fingers … it's up to the spine to do that."

So Drew imagines his brain sending little balls of healing to his spine, delivering letters like a mailman.

•••

The "sip and puff" propels Drew to another day of class. Between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., his life is scheduled in one-hour blocks.

During physical therapy, Drew is laid out on a mat — not too different from the ones he used to perform on. Electrodes are attached to his biceps to stimulate muscle activity. His legs are massaged. Occasionally, he is strapped into an exercise bike. The electrodes power his legs. He is put into an apparatus that stands him up in front of a mirror.

His occupational therapist, Jennifer Bolka, takes Drew to the basketball gym in the basement of the 50-year-old hospital. Today is the first day he practices driving his chair with his right arm.

"Left!" the therapist urges. "C'mon, Drew! You can do it. Just a little more."

Drew gives the chair a John Wayne glare. He moves his shoulder, which tugs his arm inward. His hand, draped over the joystick, turns the chair just a little.

Drew cannot sweat. His nervous system should tell his blood vessels to open and close — depending on whether they want to retain or lose heat. The message, however, is interrupted at his point of injury. When he's outside, Drew feels like he's in a stuffy room.

He gets hot in the mornings and cold in the evenings. Toward the end of the afternoons at Craig, he sits in his motorized wheelchair covered in towels, sipping hot tea from a straw to stay warm.

•••

Drew is learning how to live as a quadriplegic.

He tried out new skills, like turning the page of a book for the first time since the accident. Using a wand with a piece of sticky blue goo called dicem on the end, he pushes at the first page of the children's book, "Clifford the Big Red Dog." Its pages are large enough for a beginner to turn.

After a few tries, the page turns. Then another. And another.

"Turning a page in a book, scratching your nose — those things are huge," Jennifer says.

It's an emotional struggle. On some level, embracing the new lifestyle makes Drew realize he might not get better. But mastering the smallest things in life — brushing your teeth, feeding yourself — is an emotional boost.

"People who have been injured nine, 10, 12 years still aren't totally OK with spinal cord injuries," his occupational therapist says. "If you're on a ventilator, you want to get off the ventilator. If you don't have hand function, you want hand function. If you're a paraplegic, you want leg function.

"That's human nature. If I own a house, I want a bigger house."

So Drew keeps pushing. He learns how to type without using his hands. With a headset on, he works with Dragon Naturally Speaking, a program customized to his voice that types what he says. The system and laptop was a gift from Yoichi Tomita, his gymnastics coach in Tucson.

Drew goes to a favorite computer game Web site, even though he doesn't have enough movement to play.

"Wake up!" he orders the machine. "Go to address. www.G-A-M-E-S-P-O-T.com." The computer doesn't hear him correctly. "Scratch that."

Drew then opens a word-processing system.

"Today's Tuesday and I feel good," he says, and the computer types it. He goes to his favorite music Web site and selects "Tell It Like It Is" by Aaron Neville. The teenager grooves to the song written in 1967.

On a Friday in late June, Drew and other patients take a field trip to the Denver Zoo. Drew is afraid he'll fall asleep in his chair. Or worse, mow down a child who runs in front of him.

None of it happens.

"I don't feel normal," he says. "But I don't feel like people are staring at me."

It's maddening for Fran, not knowing what her best friend and only child is going through.

"If there was any way to stop the discomfort, you'd change it for your kid," she says. "As a parent, you just want to fix it."

Her voice cracks. Tears flow down her face.

She mourns.

"What's being grieved is parts of yourself," says Dr. Toby Huston, Drew's rehabilitation psychologist. "A loss of independence. A loss of control."

It hits Drew sometimes when he passes in front of a mirror.

"I see my crooked body, all kind of thin and not the way it used to be," he says.

In his mind, he doesn't picture himself this way.

•••

Drew wants to get better, but he's still not sure what that means. He defines progress as recovering completely, but also as mastering his new life.

So when he talks to God, he doesn't dare ask to be able to walk.

"I don't pray to get better," he says. "I talk to Him, like, 'Hey, help me get home.' I thank him a lot, just for the day and my mom and all the love and support."

An Irish prayer card titled "Always Have An Angel By Your Side" sits on the shelf behind his hospital bed, next to a bottle of holy water gathered in Lourdes. A prayer card of St. Andrew rests nearby, next to a candle from Drew's April 9 confirmation.

Fran, a self-described "wayward Catholic," defines herself as more spiritual than religious. So she takes walks. She dumps her purse and rearranges it, trying to grasp some semblance of order. She tries to think positive thoughts. She meditates.

After staying for a month at the hospital's on-site apartment, Fran moved into Drew's room on the east wing. Bright and clean, it looks more like an apartment than the west-side rooms, designed for incoming and sick patients. She sleeps on a green checked foldout couch.

The hardest part is staying positive and practical at the same time. Her decision-making has to stay sharp.

"Time is so warped," she says.

Drew's high school picture sits behind his bed. His muscles bulge out from a Salpointe Catholic High School golf shirt. His hair is longer than it is now. Stuck on the wall with tape is Drew the Gymnast, holding a pose with arms down, lifting his body off the ground.

There are CDs and DVDs in the room, plus a book by Christopher Reeve. There are two kinds of tea — Tension Tamer and Sleepytime Extra.

"When I moved over here, I started thinking about the rehab and just getting better," Drew says. "It's pretty easy to be impatient. I think I'm a little impatient still."

•••

Drew is bored one day between classes in late July. He drives his chair to the bridge that connects the two wings of the hospital. He looks down to the world below — the street that passes underneath and the pine trees that line the street.

He has a thought — I wonder if I can lift my arm?

His mind tells his right arm to lift up from the arm of his chair. It moves. All the way up to his chest.

Fran walks up to her son moments later.

"Mom, check this out," he says, smiling. And he lifts his arm again.

"It was just like you'd feel after you did something hard for you," he says later. "It felt good."

For now, this is what success looks like: Drew's "sip and puff" has been disconnected. He can drive with his right arm now.

He can lift both his left and right arm from his lap to the arms of his chair. Encouraged by his progress, doctors delayed his return home by a week. He is to be discharged from Craig Hospital on Aug. 30.

"Wow, things can really work out for me here," he says. "It comes to mind that I'm not gonna be in a power chair forever.

"It feels promising, like I can get this before I leave here."

In a world that has been filled for 3 1/2 months with soul-defining tragedy and small victories, Drew feels close to being, in his words, "more normal."

"It feels like I'm accomplishing my dream to push a manual chair," he says.

As one dream becomes more attainable, another, coming home — and trying to return to his old life — is getting closer by the second.

Day TWO of three

SUNDAY: Drew falls during gymnastics practice and injures his spine. He and his mom, Fran, are forced to confront their new reality.

TODAY: Drew's injury takes him to one of the nation's premier spinal cord injury centers, where he learns to regain some independence and struggles to adjust.

TUESDAY: With Drew's dream of returning home getting closer, his friends and family in Tucson prepare for his arrival.

● The spinal column is divided into four major regions: the cervical (neck), thoracic (chest), lumbar (lower back) and sacral (tailbone). There are eight spinal cord segments in the cervical region, 12 in the thoracic and five in the lumbar and sacral.

● Injuries to the cervical region are diagnosed as quadriplegia, or weakness of all four extremities. Injuries to the other three regions cause paraplegia, or weakness of the lower extremities.

The room with the drum kit will be Drew Donnellan's bedroom, at least for now. Volunteers have been renovating the old brick-and-plaster house on Edison Street in Midtown for two months. They removed a cabinet that was just beyond the front door. In his wheelchair, Drew can't fit through there.

The volunteers gutted the bathroom in the front of the 40-year-old house, removing the washer and dryer. They have begun building a drop-in shower that Drew can roll his chair into. The toilet will sit in a 5-foot perimeter to accommodate his wheelchair. The sink will be low enough for Drew to use, the cast-iron plumbing replaced.

Next week, Drew comes home for the first time since May 12, when he landed on his head while practicing a flip at gymnastics practice. He was rushed to University Medical Center and then flown to Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo., where he spent three months learning how to live as a quadriplegic.

The 16-year-old will move into his new bedroom, the corner of the house where he and The Lemons — a rock band of Salpointe Catholic High School students — used to practice once a week.

Frank Sayne, a general contractor and gymnastics dad, has followed one order from Fran, Drew's mother: His old bedroom has to stay the same.

Drew hates change. He wants to get home and get used to his new room. It might be bigger, he says, "but my old room is cozier."

Keeping his old room the same gives him a goal — to sleep in his own bed one day.

But it also serves as a reminder of his old life.

"A memento of who I used to be," he says.

Alex Muniz and Drew had plans.

Best friends since first grade, they were going to be the best man at each other's wedding.

Alex was at a party the night of the accident. He tried to call Fran and Drew, but no one answered. He went outside and sobbed.

Drew and Alex attended Jefferson Park Elementary and Booth-Fickett Magnet School before going to Salpointe. As kids, they crafted commercials and horror movies, sang the Temptations' "My Girl" in class and made plans for when they were grown up.

The wedding plan hasn't changed, but Alex's vision of it has. His mental picture of Drew walking down the aisle has been altered forever.

"Just to think that he might not be able to walk down the aisle, it's really upsetting," Alex says through tears. "That's one of the things that just hurts me the most."

Like Alex, James Aiken and Richard Hernandez went to UMC every day after the accident. The members of The Lemons — who met at a lunch table about a year ago — were supposed to play their first gig two days after the accident, at Drew's church.

The two were stunned. James and Richard used to joke about their muscle-bound friend. They said if they were ever threatened in a dark alley, Drew would beat the thugs up and they'd give him verbal support.

The first time James walked into UMC, he had no idea what to say. His parents couldn't explain it. No one could.

A month after Drew left, James and Richard wrote a song called "For Drew." Richard played the drums.

"We felt like it meant something," Richard says.

The members of The Lemons talk to Drew on the phone, tell him how the band's sounding. Alex visited Craig Hospital, bringing a bean burrito and a side of rice on the airplane to give to his friend. They took walks and giggled at the same jokes they've been telling since they were kids.

He was the same old Drew.

"I know he'll always be there, even if he's not there, physically," Alex says. "His heart's still there.

"Being there for him as a friend is the biggest thing we can do for him."

Beyond the emotional support, Drew's friends and family have come together to raise money.

Fran's insurance covers most of her son's expenses, but not all. She is not suing Gymnastics World. "It was an accident," she says.

Since May 12, gymnasts, high school friends and St. Francis in the Foothills parishioners have held fund-raisers. There were concerts, ice-cream socials, bowling nights, carwashes, gymnastics displays and magic tricks. The largest fund-raiser will take place in October.

•••

There are times when Drew separates himself into two categories — before and after the accident.

He sees himself changing.

The once-quiet teen has become outgoing — Drew has to direct his care now, tell people what to do. He knows that when he returns, he'll have to explain to others what happened to him, how his chair works. At Craig, they teach that it's his responsibility to put others at ease with his injury.

Drew finds himself becoming more sympathetic to others. Before, if he saw someone with a disability on the street, he'd assume he was just different. Now, "he's different, but kind of like me."

Drew says he's "more humanized."

He is ready to leave Craig. There, he says, the staff focused on what he can't do. It's their way of preparing him for the real world.

Drew is planning to take American history and American literature at Salpointe from 10 a.m. to noon every day, then go to therapy. He has been doing the summer reading; his mom turns the pages. It's easier than turning them himself by using a wand with sticky blue goo on the end.

But more than anything, he can't wait to do some of the things he used to do: eat at Los Betos and Eegee's, and nap on the couch. He wants to hang out with friends.

Still, he knows things won't be the same as they were before.

His injury is part — but not all — of his new reality.

Because he is unable to do many daily tasks on his own, Drew will require a home health-care worker. He should not be alone, and will need around-the-clock care. Fran hopes to return in late October to her job as executive director of Atria Campana del Rio retirement community.

In a perfect world, Drew will improve enough to live independently in a few years. Fran wants her son to experience college away from home.

Monday, Drew pushed himself 100 feet in a manual chair. Wearing a brace on his right arm, he can stab strawberries and pears, and feed himself.

Before the accident, Drew thought he wanted to become a filmmaker; he was scheduled to go to film camp this summer to find out for sure.

He is still interested in that career, but now he's not sure what his future holds. Three and a half months after his life changed forever, Drew is still learning about himself.

"I've noticed qualities in me that still haven't gone away; they're part of me and part of my attitude," he says. "But there are new qualities I've noticed. That's part of the new me."

So is he the old Drew or new Drew?

"I think I'm both."

Day THREE of three

Sunday: An accident at gymnastics practice leaves Drew paralyzed.

MONDAY: Drew's injury takes him to one of the nation's premier spinal cord injury centers, where he learns to regain some independence and struggles to adjust to his new reality.

TODAY: With Drew's dream of returning home getting closer, his friends and family in Tucson prepare for his arrival.

Two hundred yards and a row of metal detectors away from the throng, Fran Donnellan tried to reassemble her son's wheelchair.

Drew Donnellan was growing impatient.

"Mom, let's go! C'mon!" he said. "Why can't you do that?"

Fran admits she was "pretty antsy" putting together the chair after it had been checked onto the flight from Colorado.

"I think I lost a few of the parts," she said.

She had reason to be excited. For the first time in more than three months, she and Drew were home.

On May 12, the 16-year-old Salpointe Catholic High School student overrotated on a gymnastics flip and landed on his head. He was diagnosed with quadriplegia, a weakening of all four extremities.

Eleven days after the accident, Drew was flown to Craig Hospital, a world-renowned spinal-cord treatment facility in Englewood, Colo.

He landed at Tucson International Airport on Wednesday night, two hours before seeing his home for the first time since his mom picked him up to go to gymnastics practice the day of the accident.

But first, the throng awaited.

Drew used a joystick to push his motorized chair down the ramp toward baggage claim. He caught a glimpse of the 50 or so friends and family members waiting for him, the children holding balloons and adults holding back tears.

Drew told his mom he didn't want all the attention when he landed. He hates things like this.

But it didn't matter.

"Him not here, it's been weird," said Ryan King, a gymnastics friend. "I think it will make him smile."

Drew's friends erupted when they saw him.

"Andrew! Andrew! Andrew!" they chanted.

They gathered around Drew, who rotated his chair in circles, talking to many friends for the first time since May.

Drew's eyed sparkled, his smile beamed.

"It's really exciting," said Yoichi Tomita, Drew's gymnastics coach. "It's almost like he went to do a job. He really did the job, then he came back. He's already made tremendous progress."

Drew has enough movement in his arms now that he hopes to be able to use a manual chair soon.

"From Day 1, he wanted to come home," Tomita said. "This is almost a dream come true for him."

Drew took the elevator down toward baggage claim. His best friend, Alex Muniz, charged up to him.

Coming straight from Salpointe football practice, Alex still had on pads underneath his maroon game pants.

"This is amazing," Alex said. "The way he looks ... I'm just amazed.

"It makes me smile, just looking at him. I guess it's the first step, seeing all his friends all over again. Letting his friends get used to him and seeing him all over again."

For months, volunteers have worked on making his house disabled-accessible. They have installed a new shower and toilet and paved a ramp to the front door. They've turned his band's former practice room into his new bedroom.

His new room is covered with posters made by friends from gymnastics and church. Even Drew's dogs Pepper, Lilly and Wickett painted a sign for him.

Drew's aunt and uncle left his favorite foods on his new hospital-style bed — chocolate chip cookies, Skittles and cashews.

A bottle of wine waited in the refrigerator for Fran.

"I think they just want to be home," said Fran's sister, Paddy. "Last week they started counting the seconds."

Drew will return to Salpointe once he gets comfortable back in Tucson, but no one's sure how long that will take. Alex has already transferred into the third-period American Studies class Drew is scheduled to join.

Wednesday night, Alex volunteered to pick up a burrito for Drew and meet back at his house. They decided they'd do it tonight instead. Or tomorrow night.

"It's just really good to be back," Drew said.

The Donnellans had their annual Christmas party one week ago.

They served the same jerk chicken with rice and peas, made by a friend of Fran's from Jamaica. Friends surged through the doors starting at 2 p.m.

Parents chatted and kids played in the backyard of their Midtown home. Drew sat in his wheelchair in the middle of the room, talking more than ever. Wickett, his dog, sat on his lap.

Drew Donnellan, 16, suffered a spinal cord injury May 12 when he over-rotated during a flip at gymnastics practice. The boy from Jamaica — adopted as an infant by Fran when she was in the Peace Corps — was diagnosed with quadriplegia and spent more than three months at Craig Hospital, a spinal cord center in Denver.

Drew came home Aug. 30, and returned to Salpointe Catholic High School two weeks later.

Drew's arms are much stronger and slightly more dexterous now, but he is still confined to a power wheelchair.

At the end of his first semester, the junior is on pace to graduate on time with his class. When he first moved home, it took his mother three hours to get him dressed. Now, Drew can get ready in an hour and a half.

Things are getting back to the way they once were in the house on Edison Street, but they will never be the same.

Friends used to stay at the party late into the night. This year, though, the party ended at 6.

"It's just not appropriate right now," Fran said.

This is the new normal.

•••

Drew is balancing.

His physical therapist, Shelley Regan, puts her hands behind his shoulders, just in case. Drew sits on the end of the mat, his chair 10 feet away.

The therapist tells Drew to turn his head left and right, and he does. The key to balancing is for Drew to keep his shoulders square, preventing him from lurching forward or falling back.

The clock ticks on the wall at Aquatic Neurological Rehab Center on East Grant Road. Three minutes. Four minutes. Five.

Drew makes it all the way to seven, a record for him. He is tired afterward.

Drew can move his wrist up and down and has had twinges of nerve activity in his fingers and abdomen.

"At first, I thought I wasn't gonna move at all," Drew said. "Like the wrist, I was pretty surprised at that.

"I can do things that, to me, is normal now. Someone who hasn't seen me in a while will be 'Whoaaa!' I'm like, 'What did I do?' "

The Donnellans try not to get their hopes up. Drew is working hard; he has yet to miss school or a therapy appointment. He undergoes acupuncture, cranial/sacral therapy — which focuses on his head and his tailbone — and has even sat in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

"I'm still stuck between hopefulness that he'll gain more movement and acceptance that he might not," Fran said. "It's a real fragile place to be.

"I think we're both in the same place. Let's just enjoy the moment and not take for granted that, 'My finger moved today and it'll move tomorrow.' "

•••

For the first time since she was 16, Fran doesn't leave the house to go to work. She's starting to cook more now, which she finds weird.

Since returning to Tucson, the 54-year-old resigned her position as executive director of Atria Campana del Rio retirement community. The company asked her to answer customer complaints from home, which she does while keeping an eye on Drew. Her insurance remains intact and is Drew's primary insurer. His secondary insurer is Arizona Long Term Care System, a state-run fund for disabled people needing ongoing services at a nursing-facility level of care.

Drew's expenses are paid for, in part, by the $101,000 raised for him in the community. An October dinner raised about half that amount. Fran spends about $600 per week on Drew's care. When Drew starts attending oxygen therapy more frequently in January, it will total about $1,000 per week.

Drew has only been to oxygen therapy five times, but Fran noticed that his appetite grew afterward. The Donnellans are open to anything that might help Drew.

Fran is just starting to invest the money.

"I want to make sure he has what he needs to go to college," she said. "And he's gonna live a long time."

Fran spends most of her day at their house, which was made handicapped-accessible by friends while the Donnellans were in Denver. Fran was overwhelmed the second she walked in the door. It was their house, she said, only better.

"Her eyes were like a kid's at Disneyland," Drew said.

•••

When Drew has a question in history class, he nudges his best friend, Alex Muniz, who raises his hand.

When he has one in literature, he elbows Forest Melton, a home care worker who dresses him in the morning and takes notes during school.

Leading up to this past week's final exams, Drew had B's in both classes. He's learning how to learn a different way now; Forest reads tests aloud to Drew and takes dictation. Drew writes papers on Dragon Naturally Speaking, a computer program where he talks into a microphone and the computer types. It's strange, because he can't think out loud; he has to compose the sentence in his head before speaking.

"I just kinda sit there and stare out into space," Drew said. "I'm listening, but … when you're in school, you're participating by writing notes."

Last week, Forest couldn't make it to school with Drew. He went by himself.

"It was weird; I had to ask people to open doors for me," Drew said. "But they seemed perfectly normal."

Drew is more vocal now.

"He said to me, 'I'm working on that, because all I can do is talk,' " Fran said.

Next semester Drew will take three Salpointe classes and three correspondence courses. Fran is considering sending him to USC's film camp next summer — he was supposed to go to Pepperdine last summer, before the accident.

He's learning how to do things he used to do. A friend, Kevin Seery, taught him how to play computer games again. He is mastering "Company of Heroes," a World War II strategy game. He read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," turning the pages by himself.

Fran has loaned her van out to Drew's friends to go to the movies or just hang out. Drew is working on feeding himself. Right now, "it's tedious," he said. But learning how to feed himself is more important, socially, than anything else.

"He chases the food around his plate," Fran said. "It's painful to watch."

Alex has seen progress every time he says goodbye to Drew. Alex gives Drew a fist pound.

Drew can swing his arm up to Alex's now.

"He couldn't do that before," he said.

•••

Progress plays tricks on the mind. It leads to expectations, which can cause disappointment.

Drew is trying to balance the two in his head. The warmth and love shown to him since his return still astounds him. On his first day of school, the 1,200 or so students at Salpointe lined the driveway leading into the school, holding signs and chanting his name. When he got out of the car, Drew spun his chair and the place went nuts.

The fundraising dinner brought together family members he and Fran had never met before. Drew's former gymnastics coach, Yoichi Tomita, gives the family proceeds from one weekend per month of open gym. Drew's godfather in New Hampshire will do Ironman Arizona this year to raise money for him.

Drew loves going to the dog park and seeing his friends. When he first moved home, he ate so much Mexican food that he actually grew sick of it.

But when the people go away, Drew's mind wanders. Friends will come over and get in their car and leave, and Drew can't go with them. He can't lie on the couch on rainy days and watch TV, or feel the dogs climb on him.

"He has some moments; they don't last more than an hour or two," Fran said. "Very intense sadness. You can see it in his face.

"But he's better than most 16-year-olds."

Almost every day, he takes his chair into the backyard by himself.

"I'll just be staring at a hummingbird in a tree and space out," he said. "Just back to all the memories at Craig. Memories of before the accident. One time I thought about the last thing I said to everybody before the accident. I was angry before the accident, mad at my mom before I got out of the car to go to the gym. We had just finished nationals, so our season was done. They still wanted us to come (to practice) that week. I didn't want to go."

"Some days it's a bummer. Other days I feel drained. 'Nobody talks to me. I'm tired.'

"And other days I'm good."

He's balancing.

"I appreciate things more," he said. "Every day I sit outside and just take it in."

Fran Donnellan might be the first mom in history to enjoy being brushed off by her son.

One month into Drew Donnellan's first semester on the UA campus, he grew tired of his mother's stopping by his dormitory daily to do laundry or drop off breakfast. So he told her, very kindly, to back off.

"I was proud," she said. "And he was nice about it. He even let me come in the other day."

Donnellan, a Salpointe Catholic High School graduate, just finished his first semester on the UA campus.

A gymnast for much of his life, Drew was paralyzed 2 1/2 years ago when he landed on his neck while attempting a flip.

After the injury May 12, 2006, he underwent three months of treatment, including physical therapy, counseling and training on how to live with his disability, at Craig Hospital, a spinal cord center near Denver.

He returned home Aug. 30, 2006, and two weeks later was back in class at Salpointe.

Like any college student, Drew became embarrassed by his mom's presence in the dorm. Once a week, Fran drops off paychecks for Drew to give his home health-care workers. But she's not allowed to go inside; Drew meets her at the car.

That's a good thing, both he and his mom maintain.

"It's just your typical 'I don't want to be seen with my mom' sort of thing," he said. "It was a little weird, but I talk to her every day on the phone.

"It's just been one step closer to being independent."

Drew, 18, receives about $15,000 a year in scholarship money from "Swim With Mike," a charity that awards money to injured and physically challenged athletes.

The media arts major — who wants to be a cinematographer or editor — thinks he finished the semester with two A's and three B's. He didn't miss a single class.

"It's cool," he said. "I like it because it feels like you're actually starting your life.

"All the stuff in high school is the stuff you need to get to another step."

He pushes the joystick of his motorized wheelchair around campus. Drew gets through doors by whacking the blue handicap button with his elbow, and gets into his dorm room by brushing past a sensor with a key card.

He changes the channels of his television with a velcro-studded remote control.

Drew lives by himself on the first floor — the "Colbert Nation" wing — of Posada San Pedro. He has his own bathroom, where he showers in a waterproof chair. He keeps his portable lift there, too — the mechanized arm that lifts him into bed.

He needs help getting ready in the mornings and assistance with homework at night. Forest Melton, his home-care worker for the past two years, takes the morning shift.

The UA graduate attended class with Drew at first, but Drew doesn't think that will continue next semester. Drew's memory is getting better, and he uses note-takers — students in his class — provided by the UA.

Paid pre-med students typically go to Drew's room at night to help with homework and get him ready for bed. Often, they'll order pizza.

Drew can feed himself most things — except for New York-style pizza. It's too floppy, he says.

Drew sleeps alone at night with his Bluetooth hands-free phone attachment on his ear, and even books his own doctor's appointments.

He uses a respirator when he sleeps to treat sleep apnea, a result of the accident. One night, the power went out and the respirator stopped working.

He called his mom, calmly, for help. Every night, Fran makes sure her cell phone is charged and sets it by the bed, just in case.

Drew was having trouble breathing. She made it to the dorm in minutes.

When he first started school, Fran said she couldn't help but worry about her son — what if he got stuck in an elevator somewhere? What if there's a fire in the dorm?

She worries still, but not as much.

"He has such a great advantage over a person five years ago," said Fran, who has returned to work full time at a retirement community. "Without that Bluetooth, he would not have been able to live alone. It's wonderful."

Drew jokes that he has become "that guy" in the dorm — the one that keeps to himself. He and Fran have discussed the charms of small talk, and Drew is getting more outgoing every day. Once a week, he attends a gathering of Methodist students on campus.

"It's my social thing," he said.

He works out five times a week, at either a private gym on the Northwest Side or the UA's Disability Resource Center.

Drew wants to get stronger so he can drive a car rigged with special controls, which would be a major accomplishment for someone with a bruised spinal cord below the second cervical vertebra.

He has tried once, but was told he needed to be stronger and have more endurance. Learning how to drive could change his life.

Seeing other students in wheelchairs is comforting, Drew said. It makes him feel part of a community.

"I'm not just singled out anymore," he said.

Drew wants to play quadriplegic rugby next semester to try to get stronger, to make his feeling of independence even greater.

Until then, his life is well on its way, past the injury his mom now calls a speed bump.

"U of A has been a really good match for him," Fran said. "It makes it more normal. I think there are times now, more than ever, that Drew forgets he is paralyzed. That's not his main focus during the day.

"He has more moments of just being Drew than a paralyzed guy."

How to help

The Andrew Donnellan Recovery Fund pays for personal care, assistants, medical supplies, equipment and some medications for the 18-year-old Salpointe Catholic High School graduate.

Donations can be sent to Wells Fargo Bank, account number 2552379782.