Tolkkinen: Rural Minnesota teen may never walk again after hockey accident

PARKERS PRAIRIE, Minn. – In a school gym in Parkers Prairie late Sunday afternoon, people said prayer after prayer for Jackson Drum.

Drum, 17, lay in a hospital bed nearly 1700 miles away in Vancouver, Canada, unable to speak, unable to move his feet or arms, unable to breathe on his own.

A little over a week earlier, Drum, a high school hockey player from Parkers Prairie, slammed headfirst into the boards during a game in Vancouver. He suffered a severe spinal cord injury. His situation echoes that of Jack Jablonski, a Benilde-St. Margaret’s sophomore paralyzed in a 2011 hockey accident.

“From what we understand, he actually more or less died on the ice, and he was resuscitated,” said Emily Haeg Nguyen, Drum’s aunt, who lives in the Twin Cities. “They were able to restart his heart, and they rushed him to the hospital.”

Nguyen has been watching over Drum’s three younger sisters and not been able to visit her nephew. According to updates from his mother, Erica Drum, Nguyen said that Jackson’s C2 vertebra was broken in several places, and that doctors fused the C1 and C2 vertebrae to stabilize him and also performed a tracheotomy.

They have been waiting for the swelling to subside to see whether he will be able to breathe on his own, Nguyen said. Or whether any feeling will return to his body.

Although he lives in Parkers Prairie, Drum attended Alexandria Area High School, about a half an hour away, which has a hockey program. But this year, his junior year, he was attending Coeur d’Alene Hockey Academy, a hockey school in Idaho, and wanted to play hockey at the college level and coach hockey someday.

She said the accident has devastated their family as they try to absorb what this could mean for the future.

At least one adult at the vigil shared her distress.

“Forgive me personally for shaking my fist at you this week,” Jon Buettner of Alexandria told God while praying aloud in the bleachers. “I don’t understand. Help me understand.”

Buettner’s son K.J. is part of a tight-knit group of Drum’s friends. Drum has spent time at their house, Buettner said, and has been a delight to get to know. Many of those friends showed up at the vigil.

Drum has loved hockey from the time he could toddle, his aunt said. He’s a Minnesota Wild fan; his favorite player is Kirill Kaprizov.

Faith is important to Drum, his aunt said, and he belonged to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. At the vigil, pastors prayed, including Kirk Lee, pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Parkers Prairie who prayed that Drum’s body would heal and that he would be able to walk again.

The struggle to accept the teen’s accident was apparent among those gathered in the school gym. The only reassurance they could find on this night when their friend and neighbor lay in such dire straits was their belief that God was in charge and would use the accident to do good.

“I know God can help him through this,” Alex Flaten, 16, a sophomore from Alexandria, told me.

When Drum is stable, the family plans to transfer him to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which treats brain and spinal cord injuries. Ultimately, they want to bring him home. They live on a lake outside of Parkers Prairie, where Drum often skated in the winter. They will have to pave their long driveway for his wheelchair and modify their house to become wheelchair-accessible, Nguyen said.

Because the accident happened in Canada, the family is trying to figure out what their health insurance will cover. An online fundraiser has been set up on their behalf, and people are coordinating meal trains for the family when they return home, raising money, and organizing an April 12 fundraiser in Alexandria. Nguyen said that Teddy Blueger, a Vancouver Canucks player, visited Drum on Monday. Jablonski’s mother has also reached out to the family, she said.

The support means everything to Drum and his family, Nguyen said.

“It’s very clear that this community is very invested in Jackson’s well-being, and in his whole family,” she said.