A Miracle in Mexico

June 6, 2008

By Robert Mangelsdorf
Maple Ridge News

Who the hell was calling this early, Stan Smith wondered as he lumbered towards the ringing telephone in the living room.
It wasn’t even eight in the morning, and he had another long-haul job next week. His cup of tea was getting cold in the kitchen, while his wife, Monica, slept soundly in bed.
He picked up the phone.
“Mr. Smith, it’s Sean Nosek, Landon’s principal. How are you?”
“Fine,” Stan answered. “Why?”
“I hate to inform you, but your son has been in an accident.”
Just a week ago they saw Landon off at Vancouver International Airport as he left for an eight-day school trip to Guadalajara, Mexico.
Now he was 3,600 kilometres away, in the Angels of Carmen Hospital, barely alive.
“Moni, get up,” Stan called out. “We have a problem.”
•••
Fourteen boys from Westview secondary’s soccer team, as well as two of their coaches and Nosek, had come to Guadalajara as part of a cultural exchange between the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District and the Colegio Once Mexico, a private school for Guadalajara’s elite.
Westview would be offering a soccer academy next year, giving students a chance to play while earning credits towards graduation. Nosek hoped a close relationship with the school could bring an international flavour to the program.
For seven days they had been treated like visiting royalty.
They trained with former Mexican national team member Alberto Coyote, wandered the market squares, were awed by the Guadalajara Cathedral, ate tortas and tacos from street vendors, lounged in the pale violet shade of the jacaranda trees, and fell in love with the city known as the Pearl of the West.
They were billeted with families from the school, and felt like they were part of the community. It was coming up to Holy Week in Guadalajara, so there were plenty of festivities planned.
Just the day before, they were feted at a going away party at Colegio Once. With much of the school collected on the field to bid them farewell, a group of girls came out from the crowd, took them each by the hand and led them in an impromptu salsa dance lesson.
Nosek had never seen smiles as big as the ones he saw that day.
•••
Just shy of 6’3”, Landon was a force on the school’s senior boys’ team, despite only being in the 10th grade. Even though he played centre defence, he scored the Wildcat’s only goal during their exhibition games with the soccer-mad Mexicans.
Now he lay shattered and unconscious in a hospital bed.
He was bleeding internally, and breathing via a respirator. His brain was swollen, and more than 100 stitches pieced his face together.
Early that morning, Nosek had been told that one of his charges had nearly died in a car accident. After rushing to the hospital he prepared to make one of the most difficult phone calls of his life.
The rest of the students and coaches would travel home without him. The family Nosek had stayed with had left on a planned vacation. He was alone in a foreign land, surrounded by strangers, standing vigil over a boy he hardly knew.
•••
Landon struck up an instant friendship with Paul Bojorquez during the time he spent with his family in Mexico. The two were months apart in age; Landon, 15, and Paul, 16, and they shared the common teenage love of soccer and señoritas.
Paul spoke perfect English, and was teaching Landon some Spanish – mainly curse words, but it was a start.
In a few weeks, Paul and his classmates would be coming to Maple Ridge and staying with the Smith family, and Landon looked forward to returning the warm hospitality he received in Guadalajara.
Two nights before Landon was to head home, the pair went to the home of a friend of Paul’s. Oscar was having an impromptu farewell party, with Landon a guest of honour.
At around two in the morning, the pair drove back to Paul’s house, down Guadalajara’s broad, tree-lined streets.
Landon had an upset stomach, so he unbuckled his seatbelt and laid down on the subcompact’s fully-reclined passenger seat to ease the discomfort.
In Guadalajara, where the white road lines are mere suggestions and turn signals are nearly unheard of, late night traffic can be dangerous.
Suddenly, a car swerved into Paul’s lane. The driver either didn’t see him, or didn’t care. Paul swerved to the right to avoid a collision, but over-corrected, jumping the curb and hitting a light standard head-on. The car was totalled.
Paul, who was wearing his seatbelt, suffered little more other than a sore neck.
But Landon wasn’t as fortunate. His unrestrained body was flung into the windshield of the car.
Bloody and broken, he was rushed to the hospital.
Upon hearing of the accident, one of the parents at Colegio Once had him transferred from the over-worked and under-staffed public facility to the state-of-the-art Angels of Carmen private hospital.
Meanwhile, due to Mexico’s justice system which assumes guilt rather than innocence, Paul was taken to jail.
•••
Some time later, outside Landon’s room, sat Paul and his mother Azucena. He had been released from jail on a bond and the promise that the Smiths wouldn’t press charges. The accident wasn’t his fault – he had swerved to avoid another car. No alcohol. No drugs. Just terrible luck.
The Smith family had yet to arrive from Canada, and Azucena prayed quietly, clutching a rosary, just as she had so many years before when her husband had died. He had been murdered, his throat slit for the money in his pocket, and she was left a widow with two young children to raise.
Azucena mourned him. She prayed for strength and guidance, and found it when she directed her prayers to the Virgen de Talpa de Allende.
The centuries-old statue of the Virgin Mary resides in a modest cathedral in a dusty little town not far from Guadalajara. The small, doll-like figure, whose origins are unknown, is believed to grant miracles to those who pray to her.
Azucena had appealed to her those many years ago, and credited the Virgen with her current station in life. Though widowed, her family was happy, healthy, and successful. She worked 14 hours a day as the owner of a laser hair removal clinic to support Paul and his sister Amy. They attended one of the best private schools in the city, and lived in a good neighbourhood.
Now she prayed to the Virgen once more, for this poor boy who was so much like her own son.
It was the next day when the Virgen de Talpa de Allende paid Landon a visit. She came to the hospital on a small wooden cart being pushed by an old man, stooped by age, his brown leathery skin creased with untold stories. On top of the cart sat the 30-inch statue of the Virgen, encased in glass.
Azucena was stunned.
“What are you doing here?” she stammered in Spanish.
“The Virgen told me to come here,” replied the old man. “She tells me where to go and who to look after.”
He explained that during Holy Week, he brings the Virgen to the hospitals of Guadalajara, so that she may perform miracles on the sick.
Azucena explained what had happened to Landon, and how she had prayed to the Virgen. The old man smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t fear,” he said. “She has never lost a patient.”
The old man wheeled the figure into Landon’s hermetically-sealed room in the intensive care unit.
No one protested. Not the doctors, or the nurses.
The old man prayed.
They all prayed.
•••
It had been 24 agonizing hours since the phone rang at the Smith residence in Maple Ridge.
Their former neighbour, Dan Vargas, who was born and raised in Guadalajara, acted as translator, and they were able to speak with the doctors and quickly organize a flight to Mexico.
Morgan, Landon’s sister, had raced in from Whistler to fly down with the family.
The family arrived in Guadalajara at 6:30 in the morning. When they tried to catch a cab to the hospital, they found the language barrier almost insurmountable. Seeing their distress, a stranger who had been sitting next to them on the plane stepped in and smoothed the way.
Everyone had been so helpful.
But no one could prepare Stan, Monica, and Morgan Smith for what they saw now in the intensive care unit of the Angels of Carmen Hospital.
Their beloved son and brother was unrecognizable.
“Landon, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand,” Monica asked him.
His hand was cool to the touch, and motionless.
One of his lungs had collapsed and filled with fluid, and the doctors feared it could be pneumonia. He might have brain damage, they said, but it was too soon to know if it would be permanent. They had put him in an induced coma until the internal bleeding and swelling in the brain were under control.
Dozens of tubes ran from his body to the humming machines that kept him alive.
I just want him to live, thought Monica as she stared her son. We can work out anything else. Just let him live.
Not knowing what to expect of Mexican health care, the Smiths were relieved. The private hospital was more akin to a five-star hotel, and their son had a team of doctors and nurses working on him around the clock.
The Smiths were joined by Sean Nosek, who had missed them at the airport. He had made sure their son wouldn’t be left alone in a foreign country, and was their link to Landon during the chaos that had followed the accident. His presence was welcome and calming.
•••
As the hours slipped into days, the Smiths and the Bojorquezs continued to stay by Landon’s side, as did Nosek. The six people, former strangers, found themselves brought together by tragedy, and by hope.
The Bojorquez clan was not dissimilar from the Smiths. Both were hard-working middle class families, each had a son and daughter.
Azucena shared with them her prayers, and told them the Virgen could perform miracles.
Stan Smith wasn’t a religious man, but at this point they could use all the help they could get.
Every day that week, the old man came to visit Landon with the Virgen de Talpa de Allende in tow, and every day Landon got a little better.
Anxieties slowly lessened. The swelling was down, the bleeding had stopped and his condition had stabilized.
Monica put her hand to her son’s chest, and felt his heart pounding. His hands, once cold, were warm.
The doctors attributed the remarkable turnaround to Landon’s strong physical condition, but Azucena thought different.
By Good Friday, the doctors felt Landon was well enough to come out of the induced coma.
By Easter Sunday, Landon was awake and speaking.
•••
He doesn’t remember anything.
The ride home. The crash. The next week spent in an induced coma.
What he knows of the accident he has been told.
The last thing he recalls is taking off his seat belt to lie down in the passenger seat.
After that, there’s nothing but blackness and pain.
•••
Two and a half weeks ago, Landon returned to school at Westview secondary, where he is taking half-days until he recovers fully.
The brain damage he suffered proved to be largely non-permanent, and the soft pink scars on his face are barely visible. He is working with a physiotherapist twice a week to rehabilitate the left side of his body which was affected by the trauma to the right side of his brain. He is on medication to control seizures.
Doctors say he won’t be allowed to play competitive soccer for a least a year, but given the rate at which he’s recovering, that could change.
Paul came to Maple Ridge at the beginning of May with more than a dozen of his classmates. He stayed with the Smiths and wants to return soon to stay for a year, and attend school at Westview.
After coming so close to losing their son, the Smiths now find themselves gaining one instead.
Monica wonders, was it all some kind of miracle?
Perhaps.