Shooting victim recovers in Denver, aims to beat odds

James B. Meadow, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 21, 2007 at midnight

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Mornings are the worst.

Mornings are when he wakes up from his dreams, and in those dreams, he's upright, he's walking. He's whole. He may even be T.T. Krunchki, the Polish Prince. Bearded, nasty, 6-foot-6 and 400 pounds, the former tag-team champion of South Africa walloping some chump opponent, loving it as the crowd boos because he always loved performing.

Then he opens his eyes and he knows the dreams were lies. In the dreams, there was no punk with a gun, no bullet wedged in his spinal cord, no ribs shattered so badly he needs medication every 2 1/2 hours to escape his dungeon of pain.

The two legs that stretch out in front of him on the hospital bed are inert as pencils, lifeless. The doctors say he's got about a 6 percent chance of ever walking again, which is better than no percent, but not by much.

But after reality sets in, maybe Tommy Urbanski turns his head to the right and sees the mattress on the floor. Maybe Kathy is still on it, sleeping.

Just seeing his wife - "my best friend in the world; she's one in a million" - having her near, is all it takes to remind him there's still a lot out there for him to reach for. To convince him that, "I know I can live a fruitful life, I know I can. There's still so much I'll be able to do. I got all the drive to do it."

He also knows this: "I'm lucky to be here."

"Here" is the third floor of Craig Hospital, the Englewood institution that treats spinal cord and brain injuries. Here is where he is learning to train the muscles and body parts that still work to work harder. Here is 600 miles from Las Vegas, from the life he and Kathy were building.

Here is not there. Not Minxx, the gentleman's club in Vegas where the last thing Tommy Urbanski remembers about Feb. 19 is a flash, a noise, then dropping "like a pile of rocks" into a deep, black nightmare.

Moving through pain

Sheathed in a body sling, dangling like a pendulum, Urbanski, 44, waits for physical therapist Audrey Natale to lower him onto a green mat. Today's session is getting off to a late start because he had to be hooked to an Intermittent Positive-Pressure Breathing unit to help open his lungs and prevent pneumonia.

Complications from pneumonia loomed large after the shooting. He was on a respirator for almost a week, and his partially collapsed left lung heralded the arrival of an infection, which necessitated both a regimen of antibiotics and the insertion of drainage tubes. Although his breathing is improving, nobody is getting complacent.

But it isn't his lungs that are bothering Urbanski, as Natale begins the regimen of random-motion exercises. It's his ribs.

Although he is without sensation "from about an inch above my bellybutton all the way down," the splintering pain in his ribs holds him like a vise. One of the bullets that rammed into him broke some of the ribs on his left side; the right side cracked when he fell. That fall also fractured his right wrist. Meanwhile, his left wrist was broken by another bullet.

These latter injuries have slowed Urbanski's therapy because, until those arms can bear weight, mostly all he can do is allow his therapists to manipulate and massage and stretch his body. The good news, however, is his left hand is improving steadily - he can use it to control his motorized wheelchair, to wield a spoon or fork. The bad news is the right hand won't heal for weeks.

And yet his tone is offhanded when he says, "I'm always in some kind of pain. But it's hard for me to ask for pain meds all the time."

"Tommy thinks he's being a wimp if he asks for painkillers," says Kathy, shaking her head, watching as a nurse administers a fresh dose of the potent narcotic Dilaudid into the IV line.

Meanwhile, Natale moves Urbanski on the mat, the idea being to keep his joints supple.

"If he stiffens up and can't bend his legs, he won't be able to sit in a chair - this is for circulation and mobility," she says. "We need to keep the joints fluid, just in case he can walk."

Nearby, an older man with silver hair watches intently.

"I picture him walking someday, I really do," says Donald Urbanski. Then he smiles, more to himself than the person in front of him, and says softly, "But that could just be a father's dream."

The rise of a wrestler

Tommy may have been the baby of the family, but by the time he was 15, it was more like, whoa, baby. He was big, almost scary big, especially when he began following his older brothers into the gym. But, funny thing, when it came to playing football for Commack (N.Y.) South High School, Tommy was the one who was nervous. When his father would tell him to go out there and bust some heads, Tommy would say, "I'm afraid I'm gonna hurt somebody."

He cared more for music. He picked up the guitar. Got pretty good. He could hear a tune once and figure out how to play it.

He liked the guitar; he liked being in a band even more. And he loved performing, loved an audience. Maybe there was something in the water in Commack, a town about 35 miles from New York City: one of his high school classmates was a girl named Rosie O'Donnell.

After high school, he played in the band, worked as a bouncer in a club, figuring out what he wanted to do with himself. His sister knew a wrestler named Gino. Gino asked Tommy if he was interested. Hmm.

He had to earn his stripes - podunk towns up and down the East Coast. Then it got way better. Europe, Asia, bits of Africa.

He took on different personas - T.T. Krunchki, the Eliminator, the Mad Russian. He grew a beard to make his baby face look older, meaner. He took on some of wrestling's headliners - Hulk Hogan, Sgt. Slaughter. He was the heavy, the guy the crowd booed. So what? They were watching him, weren't they?

He still worked in clubs as a bouncer when he wasn't wrestling. He liked being around people. He liked people, period.

A friend introduced him to Kathleen Ryan. Brown eyes, great smile, smart. Two years later, they were married.

She was a teacher. He was a bouncer. Housing prices in New York were unreachable. They wanted to make a fresh start.

September 1998. They loaded down the beat-up Mercury and headed to Vegas. Between them, they had a thousand dollars cash. Between them, they had million-dollar dreams.

Trouble with 'Pacman'

Kathy got a job teaching. Tommy got his Realtor's license. Life was good. They bought a house. They had friends. How could it be otherwise? Kathy knew how "charismatic" Tommy was. He was "the life of the party. People gravitated toward him."

Time passed. Vegas neon threw a garish light on some of their dreams. Kathy hated the school system, the politics, the lack of funding, the fact that strippers made more than teachers. She thought of law school. Tommy liked the idea.

But the housing market had gone south. When it picked up, they'd find a path to law school. For now, Tommy would start making extra dough.

He got a job as a manager at an upscale strip club, the 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. shift. But where he grew up, "If you're not 15 minutes early, you're late."

So on Feb. 19, he showed up early at Minxx. The place was empty, almost peaceful. He'd missed the big trouble. A pro football player named Adam "Pacman" Jones had been in. Things got rough. Punches. Threats. Club security threw Jones and his crew out.

One of them came back. When he finished shooting, three people were down. Only two would walk out of the hospital.

Yanked from a sound sleep, Kathy got the news. She rushed to the hospital. Tommy was lying there, blood everywhere. He'd been shot three times, maybe four. One of the bullets had smashed into his spine. He told Kathy he might be paralyzed. He told her he loved her "more than anything." Then they wheeled him to surgery. The life of the party was close to death.

They kept him in a medically induced coma for three weeks to protect him from the pain. His lungs were in bad shape - infected, struggling.

Actually, just about all of Tommy was struggling. Every day, it seemed, Kathy would hear of some new problem. His spleen had to be removed. Some new antibiotic for another infection. Two weeks went by before they found the fractured right wrist.

Each new episode of bad news was hard enough during the day. Night just made it worse.

Midnight, 2 a.m., when Kathy had to leave the ICU to take care of a thousand details, to maybe grab a scrap of sleep, the thing that coiled around her heart and choked it was "not knowing if Tommy was going to die during the night with me not there."

She was desperate for him to live, and yet she didn't want him to suffer. She was, she knew, "absolutely out of my mind."

But Kathy knew Tommy needed her. And Tommy knew Kathy needed him. So each day has represented another step forward.

Stepping into the future

It's been a month since the March day Urbanski came to Craig. Kathy is trying to answer a question about money. About how much it will cost for the large wheelchairs Tommy will need because, even though he's lost a quarter of his body weight, he still weighs 300 pounds.

She's talking about all the modifications their house will need to accommodate Tommy. She's talking about volumes of bills - today's and tomorrow's.

Yes, there have been fundraisers run by Tommy's friends. Yes, Kathy's teaching job carries medical insurance. But she doesn't know when that maxes out. She doesn't know what it will all cost. Millions, probably.

But all this doesn't matter to her right now. What matters is Tommy is still here - they're still together. All the time.

During the day, she's always around for his therapy. At night, she sleeps on a mattress on the floor next to his bed. Craig provides housing for families, but Kathy doesn't care. She remembers the ICU in Las Vegas. She's not leaving him again.

She's lived with all the fear and anguish and sadness so long that, when she speaks about it, her voice is calm. Only her eyes - sometimes damp, often tired - betray the emotion.

Then talk turns to the shooting and the room turns cold. The Vegas police still haven't arrested anyone, she says, not really thinking about the cops.

She shakes her head and, in a voice that comes from a place most people never have to visit, says, "The thing that gets me so angry is the person who did this is still walking. He's an animal and a coward and piece of garbage. He took the legs away from a great person."

The great person cannot hear her. He is lying on a mat being turned and stretched and rolled - "a Sasquatch roll," he says, cracking a joke about his size.

There's much to learn

Soon there are no more jokes. He is sitting on the mat, relearning balance. His arms wave awkwardly, like flippers in the air. Sweat appears on his forehead. Blue eyes are narrowed into slits. Hello, T.T. Krunchki.

After physical therapy comes occupational therapy. Activities of Daily Living. Today's task is to wield scissors, cut photos from magazines, make a collage. Urbanski goes about his tasks without complaint or self-pity. Yeah, he knows about the specter of urinary-tract and respiratory infections that will always lie in wait. He knows about the prospect of neurogenic pain - cruel pain that spirals out from the scarred site of his spinal cord, burning like electricity. He knows all this - and more - could be lurking down the line.

But he also knows there are people worse off. He's seen them. "Down on the second floor here, they got guys with brain injuries," he says. "They've lost their identities, they don't know who they are."

He pauses, then mentions something maybe even worse. "They don't know who their wives are."

He'll probably be at Craig until June. His right hand will heal and will join with his left in helping him master the weight-bearing exercises designed to make him more self-sufficient. He'll learn to cut his own food, learn to move about a kitchen. He figures he's got a lot to master.

He hopes one of the things he'll have to learn is how to walk again. But if he doesn't ever get to do this, well . . . OK. He's not going to let the guy who took away his legs take his life, too. He's going to reclaim as much as he can. Maybe even get his mornings back.

So what if those dreams about him walking are lies? There's plenty of time to find new dreams. Dreams he can share with his best friend in the world.

To contribute

• Tommy Urbanski Fund

Silver State Bank

400 Green Valley Parkway

Henderson, NV 89074

• Or go to: www.tommy urbanskifund.org

meadowj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2606

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