[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7613-7614]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  RECOVERY OF SNOWBOARDER KEVIN PEARCE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Kevin Pearce has been recognized as one of 
the best athletes that Vermont has produced. Like all Vermonters, 
Marcelle and I hold him in our prayers and thoughts after a devastating 
snowboarding accident while preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
  We have heard reports from his parents, Simon and Pia, about his 
recovery and like all Vermonters, and so many other Americans, we are 
so thankful he is back home and progressing every day in his recovery.
  I watched Kevin's interview with Tom Brokaw on ``The Today Show'' and 
he discussed how well he was doing with Tom. I also wanted my fellow 
Senators to see the article about him in The New York Times and ask 
unanimous consent to have printed in the Record that article at the 
completion of my remarks. I can only image how much Kevin enjoys being 
home with his parents and his brothers and how much we all appreciate 
his tremendous courage and abilities.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the New York Times, May 3, 2010]

                ``No Place Like This for Soothing Care''

                            (By John Branch)

       Norwich, VT.--The renovated barn next to the family house 
     was always one of Kevin Pearce's favorite places. There is a 
     skateboard ramp out back and a giant recreation room inside, 
     with three loftlike bedrooms above.
       But Pearce, 22, did not move into the barn until he was a 
     teenager, and soon he was off to snowboarding schools and 
     then on the worldwide circuit. Home, and his room in the 
     barn, became just somewhere to get away for a day or two.
       Now it is the ultimate destination.
       More than four months after sustaining a traumatic brain 
     injury during a training accident, after missing the Olympics 
     and living in hospitals in Utah and Colorado, Pearce has 
     returned, indefinitely.

[[Page 7614]]

       ``It's the best thing ever,'' Pearce said Monday, sitting 
     on a living room sofa while holding hands with his mother, 
     Pia. Handwritten ``welcome home'' posters, balloons and 
     streamers hung about the house. ``There's nothing I could 
     think of that's any better than coming back home.''
       And for a moment or two, it was easy to imagine that 
     nothing extraordinary had happened to Kevin Pearce at all. He 
     laughed with his family. He talked about snowboarding. He 
     discussed the Olympics. He smiled, big as ever.
       ``Things feel very normal to me,'' Pearce said.
       The past few months, much of which Pearce does not 
     remember, have been anything but normal. On Dec. 31, Pearce, 
     a rising rival to Shaun White who was expected to make the 
     United States Olympic halfpipe team and compete for a medal, 
     fell and hit his head (he was wearing a helmet) while 
     practicing a trick in Park City, Utah.
       A helicopter flew Pearce, unconscious, to the University of 
     Utah Hospital in nearby Salt Lake City. The front half of his 
     shoulder-length hair was shaved so the recesses of his brain 
     could be drained of fluid. His family was summoned 
     immediately. Painful questions about whether he would live 
     slowly gave way to uneasy ones about how his life would be.
       This is how, for now. Pearce walks without assistance, a 
     little gingerly but sturdily enough to navigate the stairs to 
     the familiar bedroom in the barn. He looks a little different 
     now, too. His hair, after being shaved to one length, has 
     grown back to the top of his ears. He wears bold, dark-rimmed 
     Oakley Frogskin frames with prismlike lenses. The vision in 
     each eye is fine, but the eyes themselves are a bit out of 
     sync, not quite tracking together.
       ``My eyes are a little sketchy,'' he said. ``But they're 
     better than they used to be. They used to be scary blurry.''
       Pearce says he does not remember the accident. He does not 
     remember much from the weeks before the injury, including 
     Christmas at home. He remembers nothing after the injury 
     until the first week of February, when he was flown from Utah 
     to Craig Hospital, a brain and spinal cord rehabilitation 
     center near Denver.
       He does remember watching White win the Olympic gold medal. 
     Scotty Lago, a good friend of Pearce's who had had far less 
     big-event success, won bronze. It was tough, Pearce admitted.
       But there is no memory of the moment when he learned just 
     how severe his injury was.
       ``I never felt sorry for myself,'' Pearce said. ``This is 
     kind of what I signed up for when I started snowboarding.''
       He vows that he will snowboard again.
       ``Obviously, I won't be doing all the things I was doing,'' 
     Pearce said. ``Hopefully, I can still do some of the 
     tricks.''
       Pearce's promising comeback has not included a 
     recalculation of his long-range ambitions. His family is 
     consciously keeping him concentrated on the here and now.
       ``There is little use thinking about the past, what could 
     have been, or what may be in the future,'' Simon Pearce, his 
     father, said. ``He has stayed focused on the present moment. 
     And it feels like it is working.''
       For months, Pearce has undergone rehabilitation and 
     therapy, both mental and physical, often for six or more 
     hours a day. More recently, he went to a Denver-area gym, 
     too, riding stationary bikes and playing basketball. He left 
     only after making at least 7 of 10 free throws. That sort of 
     therapy will continue at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center 
     in nearby Lebanon, N.H., and at a local athletic club. 
     Pearce's rehabilitation continues to focus on vision, balance 
     and memory.
       Pearce cannot fully appreciate how far he has come, however 
     often he watches videos that his family shot of him in the 
     hospital in January. But his parents and three older 
     brothers--Andrew (28), Adam (25) and David (24)--are still 
     amazed.
       That hit home when the traveling party--Kevin, Adam, their 
     parents and their snowboarding friend Jack Mitrani--arrived 
     at the airport in Boston. Pearce walked through the airport 
     and carried his own bag.
       They arrived at the family home about 9 p.m. Saturday. 
     About 30 friends and family members greeted them with cheers, 
     hugs and a few tears.
       On Sunday, after a short hike up Gile Mountain, the family 
     gathered for supper. It was a rare reunion. Simon and Pia 
     generally alternated trips out West. Andrew, a manager for 
     the glass-blowing company founded by Simon Pearce, went back 
     and forth, too. Adam left his job as a snowboarding 
     instructor in Utah and has barely left Kevin's side, even 
     moving back to the barn. (Among other things, Adam provided 
     updates on a get-well Facebook page for more than 48,000 
     fans.) David, who has Down syndrome and has long provided 
     perspective and inspiration, mostly stayed in Vermont and 
     worked for the family business.
       But one horrific accident, and one celebratory homecoming, 
     brought them together again.
       ``Sitting at the table, for me, was a big thing,'' Pia 
     Pearce said. ```Wow, here we are, back at our round table, 
     sitting together.'''
       On Monday afternoon, everything seemed normal. Kevin 
     Pearce, after taking a nap in his old bedroom in the barn, 
     was sitting in the grass out front with the snowboarder 
     Ellery Hollingsworth. The sun was shining. Pearce was 
     smiling.
       Yes, it was good to be home. Awfully good.

                          ____________________