Rapids show 'Strength in Numbers'

“Strength in numbers” is the motto of the field hockey team this year at James River, but the saying is not just a cliché thought up by a coach to get the team to play well together on the field. The saying carries a lot of meaning for teams past and present that have come together this summer to support a fallen member and her family. And the saying will reach a pinnacle on Saturday, Oct. 10, during the first ever James River alumni field hockey game and carnival.

“This whole crazy event started out as an alumni hockey game,” Rapids’ varsity field hockey coach Slade Gormus laughed. “Now I sit here with three pieces of paper and a notebook, and this is just one person. There are probably 10 of us that meet once a week to work on it.”

The event, which has grown exponentially since conception just three months ago, will serve as a fundraiser for former player Carolyn Heuser Powell and her family.

Tragedy strikes

It is often said that a person finds out who their real friends are when tragedy strikes. If that’s the case, Carolyn now has over 1,200 friends from across the country and even as far away as Australia.

Powell graduated from James River High School in 2000, having played for four years on the varsity field hockey team. As one of the team’s top players, she probably could have played in college, but instead turned her energy to studying nutrition at James Madison University.

As teens tend to do, she grew up, started a family with husband Luke Powell and began her career, but she kept in touch with a lot of classmates and friends through the social media forum Facebook and the occasional text message and phone call. And it was through the various media that friends began to learn that something had happened to Carolyn during the night after the July 4 holiday this year.

“I think it happened on the fifth in the middle of the night, and I got my first text message on the sixth from Jaclyn Bailey who lives in Boston … the text message was something like ‘Something’s happened to Carolyn, what are we going to do?’” Gormus recalled.

The Powell family had just returned home on July 4th from a weekend on the water. They spent Sunday, July 5, relaxing and preparing for the week ahead. According to Luke, Carolyn went to bed shortly after putting their youngest son Parker to bed around 8:30 or 9 p.m.

“I came up to bed around 10 o’clock and she was coherent and up and said good night, and what happened between 10 o’clock and 12 o’clock, nobody’s really sure,” Luke said. Luke awoke at midnight to the sound of the couple’s oldest son, Landon, crying and Carolyn no longer in the room. As their son continued to cry, Luke got up to find out what was going on. He found his wife unconscious in the other room where her heart had stopped. He called 9-1-1 and started CPR.

“The EMTs were there within five minutes, so they did a wonderful, wonderful job,” Luke said.

Carolyn was transported to Chippenham Johnston Willis hospital where she was put on ice to give her body a chance to rest. As doctors warmed her body temperature, they prepared her husband for the worst.

“[The doctors] said, as far as her heart, which caused all this, that was progressing fine. Her lungs and breathing were progressing, but as far as neurologically, they were very concerned … One of the first weeks, I can remember the neurologist saying that the girl that came in here won’t be the girl that leaves here, if she ever does get to leave. So that was kind of hard to take,” Luke said.

By that time, a community had started forming around the family and was becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Pulling together

According to Luke, Carolyn enjoyed Facebook and the opportunity it gave her to stay caught up with her friends, many of whom played field hockey with her at James River. Once word got out that something had happened to her, it spread fast and started a flood of phone calls and well wishes.

“I had an abundance of calls, and I couldn’t get back to everybody. So one of her friends decided that she would set up a Facebook page for Carolyn and would keep everyone up to date on what’s going on,” Luke said.

The page, created by Bailey, carries an update to its 1,241 fans (as of Sept. 26) every two to four days. Fans are close friends, friends of friends and people who have simply heard Carolyn’s story. The “Get Well Carolyn!” page has nearly as many comments as fans, all wishing her a speedy recovery and encouragement down the long road to recuperation.

“I said [to Luke and Carolyn], ‘You’re going to pull through this. There are other people, everybody’s praying for you, people that don’t even know you’ … Luke would read her the Facebook messages and that’s where all the strength in numbers came from because it was like because all of these people are pulling for you and praying for you, you’re not doing this by yourself,” Gormus said.

Carolyn stayed at CJW for three weeks and moved to the University of Virginia hospital on July 27 where she is currently undergoing intense physical therapy. She has since regained the strength to talk, feed herself and walk with only a little assistance. Though she has not fully regained her sight, her husband continues to read her the Facebook messages at least once a day.

“Whenever she’s got a break from therapy, she’s always asking, ‘Have you been on Facebook to see who’s written?’ So we’ll go on there and I just sit by her bed and read what everyone says,” Luke said. “A lot of [the comments] are just words of encouragement, just letting us know that we’re in their thoughts and prayers. She’s been reconnected to people from Australia, all over the place. It’s really been amazing.”

A growing idea

The event on Oct. 10 started as a simple alumni game – a way to bring all the field hockey players, past and present, who had been pulling for Carolyn, together in one place.

“It started when Carolyn woke up and became alert in the hospital and I said, ‘Alright, you’ve got to get better, so you can come and play.’ They’ve been bugging me for years to do an alumni game, and Carolyn said, ‘Now you’re going to do an alumni game!’” Gormus recalled.

As an athlete, Carolyn’s tenacity earned her a prominent spot on the Rapids’ front line. She was a high scorer on the field and her hockey past came through for her again in the hospital.

Being a field hockey player was one of the first things she remembered when she came out of the coma, and common hockey terminology has helped her a few times in therapy.

“You can see in her face the concentration of every little thing she’s doing and I could see that she was [struggling] with something one day,” Gormus said. “She had to pick up a ball and the therapist wanted her to straighten her wrist and then extend her arm because what she was doing was picking up the ball and then going this way (extending her elbow out, bringing her arm out to the side and swinging it around to the front). The therapist kept saying, ‘Before this happened you wouldn’t have done that,’ … I was trying to be quiet but I could tell Carolyn needed another [word], and I said, ‘Carolyn, you’re throwing elbows right now. Instead of throwing elbows …’ and she said, ‘Oh, extend my arm and then bring it in,’ and the therapist said, ‘Are you the coach?’ and I said, ‘I was the coach, yeah.’ It was like she knew, you’re throwing elbows, you’re sticking that elbow out.”

The event has grown way beyond just a field hockey game though. Oct. 10 will feature games and inflatables, a silent auction for goods for everything from days at vacation homes to gift certificates to local restaurants and power washing for homes. The event kicks off at 10 a.m. with the alumni field hockey game starting at 11 a.m., and the alumni team may be changing players every two minutes with the number of former players who have confirmed that they will be there.

“My players, I ran into a player at the [recent] Cosby game. She teaches at Cosby and she said, ‘I think I may have talked to Carolyn once, but she’s part of that family,’ and that is what I have as a coach, tried to teach these kids – that forever and always you will not be by yourself … It’s an extended family,” Gormus said. “That’s why I’m so proud of all these kids.”

The current team has dedicated their season to Carolyn and the Oct. 10 event has given an outlet to all the well-wishers, who according to Gormus, flooded her inbox in the days and weeks following Carolyn’s hospitalization wondering what they could do to help. Parents, friends and businesses have come out of the woodwork donating items for the silent auction, sponsoring booths and giving money to help run the event. Organizers are hoping to have the emergency responders, who answered Luke’s 9-1-1 call, on hand along with some of the CJW nursing staff, who cared for Carolyn in the weeks following her collapse. And, of course, everyone is looking forward to seeing Carolyn, Luke and their two sons at the event as well.

“We will definitely be out there,” Luke said. “We probably won’t be home for good by then, but we will be able to at least spend the day there in Richmond at James River.”

Carolyn continues to work with her physical therapists at relearning how to live independently. According to her husband, she will stay in Charlottesville as long as there are improvements. Her vision continues to improve as well. According to an update posted Friday, Sept. 25 on the ‘Get Well Carolyn!’ page, she has been able to read road signs and is practicing reading on nightly walks around the parking lot and hallways at UVA.

“She’s truly a miracle,” Gormus said. “I think sometimes, when you didn’t see her in those first few weeks, you can’t appreciate what a miracle it is.”

Her sense of humor and work ethic have also made her a hit with the therapists and nursing staff at UVA, who have made everyone promise to make a collage of the event. The fact that an entire community has rallied around her as it has is not lost on the Powell family.

“We just can’t thank everyone enough for the support, whether it be the cards, the Facebook posts, the gifts, the money, everything that people have done for us,” Luke said. “It’s just been incredible. I guess you really find out a good deal about your friends when something like this, a tragedy, happens. To watch everyone come together … if there’s one positive thing you can take from this, that’s definitely it.”

The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the James River High School football stadium. It is free and open to the public. All donations along with proceeds from food sales will go to the Powell family. Donations can also be made via check or money order to: James River High School Boosters, 1811 Glamorgan Lane, Midlothian, VA 23113.