UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Father and son had just left a therapy appointment, one of many that Kyle Gilbert had completed in the previous year.
There will be even fewer moving forward — about one a week — a sign that Kyle’s recovery is not only on track but also ahead of schedule. Though for now, there is still work for Kyle to do.
And he’s making considerable progress.
This latest appointment, for example, focused on his left wrist, something doctors thought would require a follow-up procedure three months before.
Now, the muscle is growing back and Kyle has been cleared from surgery, which the family calls a victory. Kyle returned home not knowing if he’d need additional surgeries — on his wrist or elsewhere — and thankfully, his mother Grace notes, he hasn’t.
“My wife and I decided that we were going to see this through,” Darren (Kyle’s father) said by phone, sitting next to Kyle after the therapy appointment. “The goal when we made this decision was to take it day-by-day, and we’re with him 24–7.”
Last year, one of many injuries that Kyle sustained was ulnar nerve damage above the elbow, which controls the movement and feeling in your fingers; over the last year or so, the damage has been repairing itself. Kyle experienced some initial numbness last year, though that’s nearly all gone, with Grace saying she’s shocked and happy with how her son continually proves everyone wrong.
A different set of standards used to apply to Kyle, a standout pitcher who helped lead the Penn State Baseball Club (PSBC) team to a World Series title in 2013 — he was named MVP of the squad while occupying the No. 1 spot in the pitching rotation, and graduated the same year.
He excelled in both baseball and wrestling while attending high school in Duncannon, Pennsylvania, and quickly drew attention after arriving at Penn State. He made the PSBC D2 team as a freshman, made the PSBC D1 team as a sophomore, and remained a rotation starter for his final three seasons, winning the team’s Best Pitcher Award from 2011 to 2013. He also received second-team (2011) and first-team honors (2012, 2013) for the All-North American Region awards.
One particular example of Kyle’s grit is a regional tournament in which Kyle pitched 14 innings over two games in one day.
“He was lights out,” said Kris Park, a 2010 Penn State graduate and president of the Alumni Association’s Baseball Club Alumni Interest Group (AIG). “He carried us that day.”
While playing for the club team, Kyle earned a degree in chemical engineering and secured a job right out of school. That’s what drew him to Penn State, his father said, the ability to study that major while also continuing his athletic pursuits.
When he visited, “every student had Penn State gear on, and they had the No. 1 engineering program in the country,” Kyle said. And Grace added that Penn State is the only school that Kyle applied to — that’s how determined he was to become a Nittany Lion
He received several promotions after graduation, traveling the country while completing a technical associate program within the company. Then he received an engineering job offer in Houston early last spring, and he was set to visit and look for an apartment.
However, a snowboarding trip to Utah the week before changed everything.
Kyle fell 100-plus feet on his last run after mistakenly taking the wrong chute, absorbing major damage to his skull and basically everywhere else on his body. There were broken bones, nerve damage, and a host of fractures: eight spinal, two pelvic, one hip, and 20 in his left wrist.
Also, Kyle suffered a traumatic head injury. His skull was pressing into his brain, which was later relieved when doctors lifted the skull during surgery. Grace said the ultimate reason for her son’s recovery is his brain’s ability to heal and relearn basic actions that most people take for granted, such as walking and speaking clearly.
But first, his life had to be saved.
A ski lift operator — who was on a break of all things — saw Kyle falling on the hill and then his body stopping. He immediately knew something was wrong, with Kyle falling in a way that he couldn’t control. The operator gave Kyle CPR and called in the accident to ski patrol, and Kyle was life-flighted to McKay-Dee Hospital in Utah for life-saving surgery.
After 12 days in the ICU at Utah, he boarded a flight to Harrisburg for additional surgeries and procedures at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. He stayed at the ICU in Hershey for another five days, before being transferred to Select Specialty Hospital in Harrisburg; he landed there because he was somewhat in limbo. He was stable enough to exit the ICU, though not recovered enough for a traditional rehab.
Back in Utah, Grace said her son remained in a haze, though he remembers hearing doctors say that he would never walk, talk, or feed himself again as his status remained fragile during the initial days following his fall.
Despite the grim prognosis, the family had another thought, one even more determined and rooted somewhat in defiance.
“You don’t know our son,” Grace remembers telling them, speaking of her boy that she described as strong-willed and hard-headed growing up as a toddler. He’d argue with you before he could speak in full sentences, Grace remembers, so if anyone could defy the slim odds that the doctors were giving, she figured it was her son.
Kyle has come a long way since the day of the accident on March 21, 2016 — physically, mentally and emotionally — miraculously proving his parents right.
Most importantly, he’s alive.
When Kyle’s parents received a call last year notifying them of the accident, they flew out the next day to see their son. More specifically, they were told to take the first available flight and get to Utah as soon as possible. The family frantically tried to pack and take care of some housekeeping items, all while booking a flight. They heard the news late in the afternoon, too late to find available seats that day.
“It was the longest evening,” Grace said.
She and Darren flew out the following morning, with the trip taking more than seven hours after a layover. All the while they thought, Darren said, that doctors were keeping their son breathing just long enough so they could say goodbye.
Doctors routinely use the Glasgow Coma Scale to evaluate admitted patients. Three criteria (eye opening, verbal response, motor response) are ranked on a sliding scale of 1–4, 1-5, and 1–6 respectively, with 1 being the worst. Kyle rated an overall 3, a mere 1 in each criteria.
“He was in extreme critical condition when we flew there,” Darren said.
Kyle’s quality of life was a substantial concern, and the few days following the accident were crucial. He also survived that next test, which was significant, Darren said, because he was still in immediate danger.
Still, there seemed to be a sense, Grace said, that doctors felt they had already done everything they could do, and this was it for Kyle.
Doctors still thought Kyle wouldn’t ever be able to feed himself or talk. And if he could talk, it wouldn’t be in sentences. And forget about walking — that was the vibe in the hospital room.
But as Darren said, he and Grace decided they were going to see this through, and at times, it’s understandably difficult for them to talk about Kyle’s status without becoming emotional.
That’s because Kyle is capable of everything he was told he couldn’t or wouldn’t do. He walks, he talks, and he feeds himself. He also drove recently. He and his family have conversations, Darren said, in addition to playing poker.