QUADRIPLEGIC'S ATHLETIC CAREER CAME TO HALT, BUT NOT FOREVER SHOT PARALYZED BUDDING PITCHER FOR COLLEGE TEAM
Published on SUNDAY, May 7, 1989 Section: Valley & State Page: B1

© 1989 The Arizona Republic

Byline: By John Schwartz, The Arizona Republic

David Carey was back in the dugout Saturday, rooting for his Scottsdale Community College teammates again, much like the tall, young athlete did earlier in the season while he was being groomed as a future starting pitcher.

''I was red-shirting (not playing) David this year, saving him a year of eligibility (at the junior-college level) for next season when his ability would catch up with his ambition,'' his former coach, Larry Smith, said Saturday before his team's doubleheader with Pima Community College of Tucson.

But there won't be a next season for Carey. He won't ever take the pitching mound again for Smith, Scottsdale Community College or any other regular baseball team.

The 19-year-old's athletic career ended abruptly March 7 in a tragic accident while he was asleep in his bed at his Scottsdale apartment. A bullet from a 9mm pistol accidentally fired by a roommate in the living room went through the bedroom door and struck Carey in the middle of his back, boring its way up his spinal column to lodge in his jaw.

In that instant, Carey became a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the shoulders down. His mother, Cora Carey, says, however, that her son has regained some movement in his arms and hands.

Cora Carey has been by her son's side nearly every hour since the accident. She traveled from Texas on Saturday to be in the stands again for her son, as she has done since he was a boy in Bay City, just outside Houston.

''When he was 15, his Bay City team went to the World Series for the 13- to 15-year-old leagues he was in at that time,'' she said. ''The team didn't win, but David was so proud just to be there.''

David Carey was proud to be there again Saturday with his college teammates. His 6-foot-4 frame propped solidly in a wheelchair, his head held steady on his shoulders with a halo-frame brace, he stared intently at the field from his position at the far end of the third-base home-team dugout.

It was his first visit back to the team since he was shot.

''I just wanted to come and see the guys play their last game,'' Carey said in his characteristic soft voice, but now whisperlike.

''It feels good to be here,'' he said. ''I'd like to be out there, but it's not to be.''

Carey was cooled in the 100-degree heat of the day by two fans placed next to his wheelchair and an occasional mist spray applied over his head, face, arms and upper body by his nurse, Larry Henderson.

''Many paralysis patients are not able to perspire, and we have to help David keep cool artificially,'' Henderson said.

He said Carey will have to be conscious of the environment around him for the rest of his life because his circulatory system no longer can constrict and expand to help warm or cool his body.

But Carey says his athletic career is not over.

''I'm going to be a coach,'' he said, staring out at the mound. ''I'm going to get a degree in physical education so I can coach high-school baseball in my hometown at Bay City.''

His mother and his college coach agree that the young man will do it.

''David was an ambitious player and willing to work hard for what he wanted out of sports,'' Smith said.

''And what we saw in David was a guy with a lot of potential and a great need to play the game.''

''He's very motivated,'' said his mother. ''I taught him that growing up, and now it's turned out that we're helping each other through this.

''I'm hoping to find employment so I can move here until David is on his own.''

David Carey said he had hoped his attendance would inspire his team to victory, but when the score reached 10-0 in favor of Pima Community College in the first game, he told Henderson he had had enough.

Henderson said Carey's body temperature also had begun to rise in the day's heat, and it would be best for him to return to the Good Samaritan Rehabilitation Institute in Phoenix.

''David has a very busy hospital schedule,'' Cora Carey said. ''It's just like a person going on a job.''

But his job now is to get well enough to return to school, she said. The first step along that goal is to get rid of the halo brace he wears to support his spine until it heals. He is growing a sparse beard on his chin just for the purpose of having it shaved off the day he sheds what he calls the vest.

Carey and his mother are without insurance to pay the mounting medical bills for his care. According to Cora Carey, the bills are more than $70,000 so far and rising.

The David Carey Fund has been established at Western Security Bank in Scottsdale to assist in meeting David's medical costs. Donations are being accepted through bank Vice President Jay L. Crawford at 7401 E. Camelback Road, Scottsdale, AZ 85251.

PHOTO BY DOYLE SANDERS/THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC

David Carey joins his friends and teammates in the Scottsdale Community College dugout for the first time since a bullet struck him in the back and paralyzed him. ''It feels good to be here,'' he said Saturday. ''I'd like to be out there (on the pitcher's mound), but it's not to be.''

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