MASTER SGT. MICHEL SAURET
416th Theater Engineer Command
Public Affairs Office
Darien, Illinois
By the time Nicolas Laboy slammed on his motorcycle brakes, it was already too late. The Honda CBR 600 wobbled hard and fell over, and Nicolas skidded across the road until he and the bike crunched against the pickup truck.
Nicolas doesn't remember the accident. He knows he was riding to work, but the entire memory of events has been lost in a sinkhole of his mind. For 10 days following, he lay in a hospital bed in a medically induced coma.
As he and his mother, Ilda, recalled the injuries, it took nearly five minutes to list all of them. His left leg broke in two places — both the fibula and tibia. He fractured his right foot. He suffered a third-degree burn across his right thigh, likely from the motorcycle exhaust pipe pressing against him on the ground. His kidney and liver were severed. His spleen ruptured.
"His internal organs were mangled. His stomach was bruised beyond belief," Ilda said. "He had to remain with his stomach opened while those organs were compacted to stop the bleeding for at least three-and-a-half days. ... His stomach was bruised and his intestines were not where they should have been. They got shifted, so they had to put everything (back) into place.”
But that wasn't all.
Nicolas also fractured his shoulder at the scapula and chromium, and suffered three fractures in his spine — lumbar one, two and three.
"It would have been worse,” Nicolas said, “but I had my backpack, which had a laptop and a cushion protecting my back. Otherwise, I probably would have been paralyzed because, I mean, a spine breaking ... you know? Yeah."
He laughed as he listed some of his injuries, including the spine. The laughter expressed relief while disguising a hint of nerves. Still, he seemed in good spirits as he recalled the horrific details, looking much healthier than he did just months earlier.
Nicolas said with confidence that the laptop and padding saved him from paralysis. Yet, it was his motorcycle helmet that saved his life. Without that helmet, none of the other injuries would have mattered.
"The doctor told me straight up, ‘If you didn't have your helmet, you would have died instantly,’” Nicolas said. “And even with it, I still had a broken nose and my brain was bleeding internally."
The accident happened five months ago, one day before the Fourth of July. In a way, it's ironic Nicolas should suffer this trauma so close to the nation's most patriotic holiday. He joined the Army Reserve in late 2012 with a commitment to defend the country's liberties. Instead of celebrating Independence Day with family, he lay in bed, dependent on tubes and medical professionals to keep him alive.
Adding to the irony, Nicolas had become somewhat the face of the U.S. Army Reserve in the months leading up to the accident. He had posed for an Army photo shoot in Chicago, and those images had been used widely to promote the Army Reserve. In fact, the command sergeant major of the Army Reserve — not knowing about the accident — used a portrait of Nicolas to wish everyone a happy Independence Day on Facebook. In that photo, Nicolas looks over his shoulder wearing his uniform, sporting ballistic glasses and a combat helmet.
Meanwhile, as his photo wished everyone a happy Fourth, his life was on the line, with so much medical equipment attached to him that he looked nothing like the poster image he once embodied. Yet, the Army Reserve didn't leave him behind, forgotten. In the first few hours of the accident's aftermath, Ilda called everyone she could think of, from family, to co-workers and even Nicolas' Army Reserve supervisors.
"I just remember before I could even hang up the phone, she was in front of me," Ilda recalls, talking about Master Sgt. Dina Sharp, who was the information technology and communications (G6) noncommissioned officer in charge for the 416th Theater Engineer Command at the time.
Sharp and her husband, Capt. Luc Roy, rushed to the hospital and informed their commander about Nicolas’ accident. Roy even went to the scene of the accident to take photos. He saw that things didn't add up as described in the police report. Nicolas had been accused of crossing over into the other lane at an intersection, causing the accident.
"(Roy) got pictures of the crash site taken by first responders that showed the true story," Sharp said of her husband.
Those photographs helped correct inaccurate witness statements, showing Nicolas was innocent. They immediately referred the family to a friend who is a lawyer.
"I was the first person, outside of family, who was allowed back to see Nic. ... My heart broke to see Spc. Laboy, one of my Soldiers, lying in that bed with multiple IVs and hooked up to different types of monitors," Sharp said.
Within days, Roy launched an online funding campaign that would raise more than $35,000 to offset the costs of Nicolas’ medical expenses. Roy, Sharp and other Soldiers took to social media to promote the campaign since they couldn't officially endorse it through military channels due to Army policy.
Both Sharp and Roy visited the hospital as much as possible. They brought Ilda water bottles and food during mealtime visits. They kept the unit informed of Nicolas’ progress so Soldiers could visit and pray for him. Soldiers invaded the hospital with get-well-soon cards and small gifts. He even received command coins from the 416th TEC and the command sergeant major of the U.S. Army Reserve.
"I've never seen so much love, commitment, honor, shown in my whole entire life,” Ilda said with a quivering voice and tears in her eyes. “The Army has totally taken my breath away. … You guys were there for him as much as you were there for me in the worst time of our lives. My cup runneth over, sincerely."
Nicolas agrees. Those Soldiers proved not only their affection, but a type of leadership he admires.
"Going forward, it kind of shows you what an officer or a (noncommissioned officer) is supposed to be like,” he said. “That is above and beyond what you're told they're supposed to do.”
Nicolas also received a lot of support from his civilian work, he said. He is an IT specialist at an Aldi corporate office in Batavia, Illinois. At the time of the accident he was a temporary hire, but they are holding a contracted position for when he returns. Through the dark times of his recovery, he looks to these blessings to keep him motivated and remembers some of the funny moments in between.
After Nicolas was out of his coma, but still sedated, a one-star general from the 416th TEC visited him. Nicolas tried to lift his right arm, but he couldn't move it, so he saluted with his left, but immediately worried over the mistake.
"It was just hilarious because he was like, 'No, no, no, no! Stop! Don't move, don't move! Relax!'" Nicolas recalled, laughing.
Nicolas spent a total of six weeks in three different hospitals to treat his injuries and receive care for his recovery. He returned home in Bolingbrook, Illinois, in mid-August and continued with another month of physical therapy. His mother and girlfriend moved his bedroom from upstairs to an open day room on the home's first floor because he still can't make it up the steps. However, he is expected to walk again, a prognosis that seemed impossible in the first few hours after the accident. In fact, he's fortunate to still have both feet today.
"There was a threat in the beginning,” his mother said. “He couldn't get circulation at the bottom of his left foot, so I had to choose whether to save his kidney or save his foot.”
As later explained, Nicolas needed a CT scan which uses a dye that allows X-rays to map out his arteries and blood flow down to the foot. However, the dye is hard on the kidneys, one of which had been badly damaged during the accident. In order to do the scan to save the foot, Nicolas might lose the kidney. Ilda chose to save the foot at the sacrifice of the kidney, but as it turns out the kidney survived as well.
Now, Nicolas has the hope of walking again. He was planning on attending Army battle assembly at the unit in November, and might move around free of his wheelchair and walker soon after.
The thing keeping him back from a speedier recovery is the open burn on his right thigh. It hurts to touch or when it rubs against something when he moves. Yet, as he feels the burn on his thigh keeping him back, he also feels the burn of life calling him to move forward. It wasn't just the helmet and laptop that saved his body, but also the love of Soldiers that encouraged him and his family through that journey of recovery.