~**~ Omentum Transposition ~**~

In the spring and early summer of 1963, Brian Sternberg rode a bendy pole to the top of the world. Although only a sophomore at the University of Washington, he had fractured the world pole vault record three times, flying a best of 16 feet, 8 inches in early June. He had captured a rare NCAA track title for the Huskies, and had been invited to represent America in a crucial event in a time of Cold War propaganda - the U.S.-Russia dual meet. Combining the strength and flexibility he had developed through gymnastics with the burgeoning technology in fiberglass implements, Sternberg had improved his best by a foot in less than one season and had rocketed onto the threshold of global recognition. Three days before he was to leave for Russia, during his customary gymnastics workout, he bounced from the trampoline bed and leaped some 15 feet into the air for a double somersault with a twist. The distance of his fall was immeasurable.	"I'm much stronger,...I can speak better, too."
Since the moment he touched down, on his head, he's been paralyzed. For more than 33 years, he's dealt with daily pain - frequently reaching indescribable levels. And his voice weakened to where he was almost inaudible. The mind stayed active but with limited means of expression, leaving him not only paralyzed but also with his thoughts imprisoned. Sternberg's tale is compelling because, at the core of it lies an unbending will and indomitable spirit. But there is news to it, as well. Brian Sternberg is improving. A year and a half ago, an American doctor working in Germany rerouted tissue from the stomach area to the damaged section of Sternberg's spine - adding a rich, new blood supply. And he now measures his progress thusly: For the first time in decades, he can scratch his nose. "Do you know what a paralyzed person does when his nose itches?" Sternberg asked in a voice that is breathy, with phrases punctuated by a pause, but nonetheless surprisingly strong. "He sits there ... and waits ... for it ... to stop ... itching." Until the recent surgery, he had limited movement in his right arm and no motor control. "Grab my wrist," he challenged me, as if to arm wrestle. He then proceeded to pull against my hand, exerting a discernible force. "I'm much stronger," he said. "I can speak better, too. A year ago, we couldn't have done this (interview). My goal now is to get a sentence out in one breath. I'm doing a lot better." From his electronic chair in the basement room of his mother's house in the Queen Anne district near Seattle Pacific University, Sternberg made it clear that he continues to set challenges for himself and strives to break a different sort of record. "He has never given up an ounce," said his devoted and attentive mother, Helen Sternberg. "In his mind, he's still an athlete." There's a sense of power that leaps from the old photos. Tributaries of veins push to the surface of Brian Sternberg's arms and legs. In the absence of fat tissue, every muscle striation is visible. He is young; he is one of the world's most remarkable athletes. The photographic fixing process captured him, forever 20, immortal in time. The pictures can be seen from his hospital-style bed. "I think he would have been the first to clear 20 feet," said Stan Hiserman, Sternberg's coach at UW. "He was only a sophomore and really just getting started with the event." The gymnastics that eventually led to his accident was probably responsible for his success in the first place. His strength - he could perform the rigorous Iron Cross on the still rings - and his agility in the air made the transfer from gymnastics to pole vaulting a natural progression. At Shoreline High, he had finished second in the state prep pole vault competition. But his giant leap came with the shift from rigid to flexible poles. A move certainly enhanced by his aerobatic ability on the trampoline. He first cleared 16 feet in March his sophomore year, and bettered that by eight inches in just two months. Meet directors all over the world sought him. "He was really quite a kid," Hiserman said. "When they flew him back to the Penn Relays, they gave him expenses. He thought that was too generous; all he wanted was his room and board, so he gave the rest back to them. "That's the kind of guy he is." Hiserman recalls Sternberg being invited on a competitive tour in Europe, "but he wanted to come home after the AAU championships and rest up for the Russia trip," he said. "His shin splints were bothering him a little bit, so we decided he wouldn't vault, but run a little bit and do his gymnastics workouts." It was a time of tremendous excitement, remembered Helen Sternberg, who, with her late husband Harold, had traveled to many of Brian's competitions. "We had so much fun, trailing him around to the different meets," she said. "We knew it wouldn't last forever. "But we didn't know it would end so soon." What alarmed Brian Sternberg first was an unusual sight. "What I remember most was all of a sudden seeing my arms and legs bouncing around in front of my eyes and not being able to do anything about it," he said. Friends spotting him realized he was injured, but since he was lying in the middle of the trampoline bed, they couldn't get to him without endangering his neck. Eventually, the whole apparatus was taken to the hospital. Only days before the accident, Sternberg told reporters that he never feared gymnastics, that pole vaulting was much more dangerous than gymnastics. He had even performed comedy routines on the trampoline, taking pratfalls for the amusement of fans. But this was no joke. In the span of a heartbeat, he'd dislocated a cervical vertebra. In the months following the accident, Sternberg received 5,000 letters. Strangers who had seen him compete and sports fans he never met called the hospital for updates. President and Mrs. Kennedy wrote. Encouragement came from around the world. But there would be no trip to Russia. No more world records. And the Seattle Pacific University cheerleader he'd been dating seriously, well, that relationship would eventually pass, too. "At first, everybody stays real close," Helen Sternberg said of Brian's friends. "But everybody eventually gets on with their lives." Insurance from the university ran out in six months. The Sternbergs had to come up with their own money, supplemented by that which could be raised through benefit events. A Brian Sternberg Trust Fund is still open and accepting donations through Seafirst Bank, with money being used for rehabilitation equipment and continued treatment and therapy. Some fans, amazingly, still "send $20 here and $20 there," Helen Sternberg said gratefully. But most people tend to forget and move on. However, the pain that began almost 34 years ago has been an unwavering attendant. "He's had pain the whole time," Helen Sternberg said. "We really don't know why, but it's been very, very bad at times, especially in the mornings. He doesn't often say much about it." I told him that people tend to equate paralysis with an absence of feeling and therefore, also, an absence of pain, but I understood that such was not the case with his injury. His simple response: "Amen. This really hurts." Staunch Christian beliefs have helped the Sternbergs, but they can't see how this has anything to do with some master plan. "Something like this should never happen. But it does, and it's up to you to respond to it," Helen Sternberg said. "You decide whether you're going to let it destroy you or if you're going to make something out of it. You have to say, 'OK, we've got some life left, what are we going to do with it?'" At times, it's been a matter of trying to convince the medical community that he's not giving in. "Some doctors have been very discouraging to Brian," Helen Sternberg said. "They think they're being realistic by telling him that he'll never walk. But it's cruel. He tells them that 'I don't know for sure that I ever will, but you don't know for sure that I won't.' " Somehow, Sternberg has stayed upbeat. "What good would being bitter do?" he asked. "I'm angry that I can't still do some things, and I've been very disappointed, but not bitter. The biggest thing is frustration over not being able to be heard." And that created for you a sense of isolation? He nodded his head. That there's much to say, but no way to get it out? He nodded his head. "For years, the telephone would ring," he said. "And I could only sit there and watch it ring." Deep down, the soul sinks a notch. I arrive for this interview at lunch time, and the 53-year-old Sternberg is being spoonfed from a bowl of fruit by his mother. You don't expect this, you don't think of the difficult, practical realities that accompany Sternberg's injury. She wipes his mouth as she must have more than half a century ago. But quickly they convince you that there's been tremendous improvement, that his surgery has brightened prospects. "I've got quite a bit more sensation," Sternberg said. "Things are really happening now. I can easily tell which foot is being touched, and I can talk to a room full of people. I couldn't do that before." Dr. Harry Goldsmith of South Lake Tahoe, Nev., saw Sternberg as a patient whose central nervous system had been disrupted for more than three decades, who could barely speak above a whisper. In an operation he pioneered, he stripped portions of the omentum, kept it connected to its blood supply at one end and stretched it up to the site of Sternberg's injury. It not only improves the circulation, Goldsmith said, but also deters the formation of scar tissue that accounts for much of Sternberg's pain. Response from some quadriplegics has been remarkable. "What will happen with Brian, I can't say," Goldsmith said. "Every (spinal) cord is different and every injury is different. What quad patients yearn for is some independence. If he could get some function back in his fingers and be able to write, it would be wonderful." Goldsmith remembers, as a young surgical resident, hearing of Sternberg, and thinking how ironic it was that the world's best pole vaulter, who was being targeted for Olympic fame, would be injured on a trampoline. "He's an unbelievable guy," Goldsmith said. "I'd say, give him another year (before measuring his improvement). Even in babies, the last thing to develop is the central nervous system - that takes two years. He's not a kid, and it's been a long time since the injury." He was equally impressed by Helen Sternberg. "She dedicated her life to a loved one," Goldsmith said. "She's a saint." In addition to his mother, Sternberg is tended by friend and fellow Shoreline grad Catherine Palmer, who has gotten him out and taken him to Husky basketball games and Mariners games. "In three years, I've never seen Brian feel sorry for himself," she said. "In fact, he's never even in a bad mood. Instead, he picks me up when I'm down. He's a delight to be with. You absolutely could not meet a better person." Above Sternberg's bed are pictures of jet planes - Blue Angels and Thunderbirds. Flying things. On his desk is a baseball that was hit foul by Mariner Edgar Martinez. He hopes to get Martinez to autograph it for him someday. On the screen of the old computer he uses is a picture he's working on, a good likeness of a small totem pole that sits on a dresser. He draws and writes letters painstakingly, using a wand he holds in his mouth. Framed letters above his bed are from John Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. The Sept. 28, 1964 letter from RFK urged him to "keep up your marvelous courage and spirit." He has done exactly that. "Life, for me, is day to day," he said. "I do a lot of letter writing for a group called The Fellowship of Christian Athletes. What I'd really like to do is just have a living situation where I could get out quite a bit and maybe do some coaching. "I mostly like being able to interact with people." During one of the toughest times, Helen Sternberg, a small, energetic sprite of a woman, asked her son if he ever felt like giving up, if it was worth the pain. Dying, or committing suicide, he asked. Some people do, she said. "Why would I want that?" Sternberg asked. "I have too much to live for."