20-year-old Ben Witkowski was in a gruesome jet-skiing accident on a Grand Island lake last summer. The accident tore off half of his hand.
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: See more photos from the accident - **WARNING: These pre-surgery photos provided by the hospital are graphic in nature and may not be appropriate for all audiences** (click to open) Photo 1 - Photo 2 - Photo 3 - Photo 4
“I was swimming there and kind of raised my hand out of the water and then only saw my thumb,” said Witkowski.
Four of his fingers were gone just below his knuckles. Medics flew him to Faith Regional Hospital in Norfolk where Doctor Tristan Hartzell spent over 12 hours in surgery reattaching Ben’s recovered hand.
“I didn't know that they had even gotten my hand until I woke up the next day with it on, reattached,” he said.
Witkowski who was an active 19-year-old at the time, and also a freshman basketball player at Hastings College, was now faced with a tough road to recovery.
“The way I looked at it was there are two paths you can go down. There is the path of feeling sorry for myself and being down all the time, or I could pick myself up.”
Nearly a year after the reattachment surgery and four additional operations, Witkowski is attending therapy three days a week to get his hand working normally again.
He and occupational therapist Jamie Doele have been working tirelessly on his recovery.
“We work a lot on making sure the joints are mobile while we wait for the nerves to regenerate and allow the muscles to heal and strengthen,” said Doele.
Each exercise is designed to work the damaged muscles and tendons.
Dr. Hartzell said Watkowski's recovery has been incredible.
“He is grabbing things, he wrote a note to one of his anesthesiologist which is really neat to see,” said Hartzell.
But the number one contributor to Witkowski’s success is himself.
“Ben is like the perfect patient; again that desire to be better is so powerful when you see it in people,” said Hartzell.
“He is very patient, it takes a certain personality to be able to do this every day and not get defeated and discouraged,” said Doele.
Witkowski’s athletic background has helped in his therapy.
“At first it was intense, now it’s not as bad. I like to think of it as if I were doing a weight training workout, or a game, or practice, it is going to be tough but you got to man up and get through it,” said Witkowski.
One of the biggest accomplishments in the last year has been hitting the court again. A few months ago he was helping some kids play basketball when instincts kicked in.
“I just picked up a ball and shot it with my right hand and it actually worked really well and I was making them so I was like oh look at that. It felt so good to finally do that, it was awesome,” he said.
Both Hartzell and Doele were not surprised to see Witkowski play basketball again, and they encourage him to try anything that his hand will allow.
Hartzell also said Ben’s recovery may be unprecedented in the medical world.
“Ben’s level of improvement is better than any that has been reported in the literature,” he said.
Ben said one of his goals right now is to get back to weightlifting in the gym.
