Roll out the welcome mat

After losing his legs, Berthoud wrestler Nikko Landeros is returning to sport he loves

The Rocky

Published November 22, 2007 at 12:45 a.m.

Text size

Photo by Evan Semon © The Rocky

Nikko Landeros, who lost his legs - as did a teammate - in a Jan. 15 accident in which their vehicle was struck from behind while they were changing a tire, makes his way up the stairs to an early-morning wrestling practice at Berthoud High School.

Photo by Evan Semon © The Rocky

Tyler Carron, who was injured with Landeros in the accident, is a freshman at Front Range Community College in Fort Collins. "I haven't fallen once," Carron said. "It's working out."

Landeros, a senior at Berthoud, does pull-ups at wrestling practice while his friend, Spencer Sadlo, looks on.

Photo by Evan Semon © The Rocky

Tyler Carron kisses his girlfriend, Ali Lofquist, after graduating. "At least I finished high school," Carron said. "I wouldn't want to have to go back. I'm sure it's a lot harder for (Nikko Landeros)."

Photo by Evan Semon © The Rocky

Landeros negotiates the halls of Berthoud High School. "Tyler and I were pretty much the perfect people for this to happen to," Landeros said. "We were strong, mentally and physically."

Photo by Evan Semon © The Rocky

Carron lifts his artificial leg to acknowledge his family during graduation ceremonies at Berthoud High School in June. He and Landeros became inseparable during their recoveries, and the two remain in close contact through phone calls and social events.

Photo by Evan Semon © The Rocky

To strengthen his upper body, Landeros uses his arms to propel a training bike while carrying the added weight of a teammate. "It's not just about muscling someone out anymore," he said of wrestling. "You have to think about it now; you can't really pin anybody."

More More Sports

More stories »

BERTHOUD - Nikko Landeros can feel the transformation take place - every time he lifts himself out of his wheelchair and onto a wrestling mat at Berthoud High School.

The past 10 months melt away.

It's 2006, before the car accident on an icy January night that cost Landeros and teammate Tyler Carron their legs after a classmate's sport utility vehicle slammed into them a mile from the school. Before all the surgeries, rehabilitation, long nights.

The dark times hardly are over, but for the first time since he woke up and learned his legs were gone, Landeros will wrestle for Berthoud in a preseason scrimmage Saturday against Roosevelt High School - a giant step on his journey back to the old days.

"It really helps. I'm a lot more involved in school now because of this," said Landeros, whose role on the team still is evolving. "We just play around and tackle each other and stuff. I'm pretty proud of myself."

Tyler Carron knows the feeling. It was nearly noon when he walked into the student union at Front Range Community College in Fort Collins on high-tech artificial legs - books slung across his back - fresh from his first class of the day.

"I haven't fallen once," he said. "It's working out."

Friends and teammates before the accident, Landeros and Carron became inseparable during their grueling recovery, which drew national attention.

They prodded each other and leaned on each other as they learned to sit up, crawl, walk and run - for the second time.

Eventually, the cameras and celebrity visitors drifted away, the focus at Berthoud High shifted back to routine matters and the day came - as they feared it would - when they were forced to go their separate ways: Carron to college, Landeros back to high school for his senior year.

"It's been a long time since I've spent the night at his house," Landeros said. "He's got college now, his girlfriend . . ."

Yet there's nothing bygone about their bond. Unwilling to accept some condensed version of happiness - or the notion that all their sunny days as athletes had been stolen away - Landeros and Carron still gather socially, still routinely phone each other, still look to humor, sports and each other for emotional solace.

In fact, each rarely is absent from the other's thoughts, especially on a day like today, Thanksgiving Day 2007.

"What am I thankful for? Tyler. That he's still here. That's he alive," Landeros said.

Added Carron: "I don't even know where I'd be without Nikko. I don't even want to think about it. I'd probably always be sad."

Nikko without Tyler

Of all the unsettling questions from the accident, one of the most troubling for the Landeros family was how Nikko would respond when Carron entered college.

A year ago, Landeros hardly could wait to get to school, to bask in the easygoing banter of the hallways and to hang out with his teammates on Berthoud's unbeaten football team.

Landeros loved everything about football: the practices, the locker room, the raw, rugged challenge of playing nose guard.

"He was a mean player," Carron said.

The pull of the sport never seemed more irresistible than a couple of months ago, when Landeros watched the Spartans run onto the field in their gleaming helmets on a Friday night, moments from playing out a dream that once included him.

Led by the "Dark Side" defense, Berthoud eventually advanced to the state playoffs, beating Elizabeth in a first-round game to end a long postseason victory drought.

It wasn't Landeros' season anymore, though - it wasn't his team.

"It's tough when your dreams are smashed," Berthoud wrestling coach Scott Pickert said. "There are definitely things (Landeros and Carron) can do, and there are definitely things they're unable to do. I'm sure they're envious of people who have their legs - that's the nature of the beast.

"Most of us kind of think we know what they're going through. But we really haven't a clue. We think we can empathize with them, but I'm sure we're not even close to what they have to go through daily."

Nothing, in fact, comes easily to Landeros. A year ago, he strolled down Berthoud's hallways with an athlete's air of invincibility. Now he worries about staying on his feet.

"I felt kind of weird at first just because I was tripping over people a lot," he said.

With little warning, Landeros might also find himself nearly doubling over from phantom pain in his missing limbs, a common affliction for amputees.

"First, it feels like my foot is burning," he said. "Then it feels like my foot just breaks in half. I just have to sit there until it passes. I was taking medication for it, but I don't like it because I really get drowsy."

His burdens hardly end there. When he returned to school, Landeros hoped to resume dating - his gregarious personality hasn't changed, it just resides in a different body.

"But I've only gone out a couple times," he said. "It's hard. I think I'll be fine. I'll think I'll get married someday."

Added Carron: "At least I finished high school. I wouldn't want to have to go back. I'm sure it's a lot harder for him."

Back on familiar turf

The wrestling room at Berthoud High, though, is familiar ground for Landeros.

Though he was a newcomer to the sport two years ago, he quickly picked up some nifty moves from a master - Carron, ranked third in the state before the accident.

"I kind of knew a lot about the sport," Carron said. "So I was always teaching him last year, helping him. It was only his second year - for the second year, he did really well."

Wrestling without legs is another matter, though hardly unprecedented.

In 1996, Cosman Bishop, a double amputee, finished second in the Washington Class AAA state championships; three years ago, Kyle Maynard, born with stumps for arms and legs, became one of the top high school wrestlers in Georgia.

And in 2001, Nick Ackerman won a NCAA Division III title for Simpson College despite having both legs amputated as a child.

But Landeros faced a bigger challenge, as Pickert acknowledged shortly before the season started.

"I don't want to say it's impossible, but it's going to be a tough road to learn how to wrestle and to get him any matches," he said. "If he'd started wrestling at 4 with no legs . . .

"I really don't know what's going to happen in the room - whether he's going to be strong enough to handle a lot of things or whether it might be embarrassing for him."

Instead, with Pickert's help, Landeros overcame obstacles that would have overwhelmed others.

"It's not just about muscling someone out anymore," Landeros said. "You have to think about it now; you can't really pin anybody. You have to know what you're doing.

"There are things I can't do anymore, but I'm pretty confident. We'll see when the matches come. Right now, I need to cut some weight."

Other challenges for Carron

In many ways, Landeros is living Carron's dream, a dream that still resonates with the soft-spoken college student, who wrestled in two state tournaments and in Europe as part of a freestyle exchange program.

"Probably (the hardest part) is that I wasn't able to finish my wrestling season," he said. "It was my senior year, I was ranked third . . ."

Instead of wrestling in the state tournament and possibly in college, Carron was forced to master skills that would have seemed unimaginable only months earlier.

"When I don't have school, I just crawl up the stairs, get in my wheelchair and get something to eat," he said. "When I have school, I shower and put on my legs.

"The first day here, I was really nervous. I didn't want to fall, and I didn't know where my classes were."

His challenges hardly ended there.

Carron remained unconscious for nearly five days after the crash, and though he didn't suffer brain damage, according to his father, he suffers from short-term memory loss.

As a result, he takes only two courses.

"When you talk to him, he loses his train of thought on stuff and he doesn't follow as well," Bruce Carron said. "When he's listening, you can tell he's kind of wandering off and not really paying attention to you anymore."

Added Carron: "I kind of space things out. My friends can tell."

Carron has no memory of the crash or the dance that preceded it.

But Landeros has filled in the missing details, replaying the event that changed their lives forever.

"It's kind of helpful when he talks about it," Carron said. "It's helpful whenever Nikko's around. We both like to laugh. If one of us falls in a shopping mall, it's not a big deal. I look at him, and we start laughing."

'Always had each other'

Since waking up and learning there were no more legs to run on, Landeros and Carron have made the extraordinary seem routine, enduring more than 20 combined surgeries in all, medical setbacks, social indignities and feelings of helplessness that seemed so unfamiliar.

One night, for example, Jairo Landeros was awakened by his son's screams. Rushing to his side, he found Nikko on the floor, unable to climb back in bed.

"A while ago, I was pretty angry," Landeros said. "I still am. I'm not saying it's anyone's fault, and life goes on and all that.

"I just try to channel my anger and get it out. One day, I'll get mad at my mom; the next day, I'll say I'm sorry.

"I go boxing to deal with it. I'll go and hit the bag. My mom got me into it - I think one of the reasons is because I've got a lot of anger.

"But Tyler and I were pretty much the perfect people for this to happen to. We were strong, mentally and physically. When something like that happens, you can't want to die. If you're weak, you're pretty much going to die. You have to want to stay alive.

"You know that dude who got stuck up in the mountains, then cut his arm off to survive? It's like that."

For Landeros and Carron, Thanksgiving Day is no longer an excuse to watch football and catch up with friends. Giving thanks now comes easily to two boys who found grace in unbearable tragedy - and in each other.

"I think it will be hard when we go (separate ways). But even when we have our own families, I'll always be friends with Tyler," Landeros said.

"We've been through a lot, but we always had each other. We always will."

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News