PREPS: Fallbrook rallies around football player paralyzed in car accident

By BRIAN HIRO - Staff Writer | Saturday, December 13, 2008 7:07 PM PST ∞

Jake Robinson, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident in September, talks to Fallbrook football player Brett Rasmussen during a game earlier this season. Photo by Jamie Scott Lytle - Staff photographer.

During her 11 years in Fallbrook, Laurie Robinson saw plenty of community spirit and altruism, but never so much as when it was directed at her family.

Just last December, after her husband, Marcus, broke his pelvis and nearly died from falling off the roof of the family home while blowing leaves, her neighbors and fellow churchgoers held a fundraiser to help defray the cost of his six surgeries.

Not even Laurie, however, could have imagined the outpouring of love and support for her son, Jake, a Fallbrook High senior football player who's paralyzed from the waist down as the result of a Sept. 23 car accident in which his spinal cord was crushed.

"It's really strange to feel so warm and fuzzy when your heart's been broken in a million pieces," Laurie said. "But you see the generosity, and you can't help but smile. It makes you want to give back, that's for sure."

Three days after the crash, while Jake was recovering from the first of two 10-hour operations to stabilize his spinal cord, donation buckets were passed around at Fallbrook's football game against El Camino ---- a ritual that was repeated for each of the Warriors' final three home games. Contractors volunteered to remodel Jake's bathroom to make it handicapped-friendly. Money was raised to cover the travel expenses of Jake's older brother, Travis, a San Diego State senior who flew home from a semester abroad in Korea upon learning of the accident. Friends and strangers alike delivered meals to the Robinsons almost nightly.

The capper was a benefit luau held last month at the Hukilau restaurant at the Fallbrook Golf Club, where Jake used to work as a waiter. Authenticity was the order of the night, with pigs roasting in a pit, a Hawaiian band entertaining the guests, and the pastor of the Robinsons' church wearing a grass skirt and carrying a conch shell. About 250 people attended the event, and many contributed items for a silent auction.

Of course, the star attraction was Jake, showing his face only a few days after being released from Palomar Medical Center in Escondido.

"It was pretty amazing to see him there," said Derek Majewski, Fallbrook's Associated Student Body president and a classmate of Robinson's. "He was really smiley, saying hi to everybody. We didn't like Jake because he was an amazing athlete. We liked him because of his personality, and he still has that."

Robinson, a tight end who also played basketball, volleyball and rugby, was driving home from football practice when he lost control of his car and slammed into a utility pole. According to his mother, he was hungry and tired from a long day at school ---- and neglected to buckle his seat belt.

"He was going too fast, and he admits that," Laurie said. "He has told his friends to always wear a seat belt."

That night, Jake's floor at the hospital was flooded with visitors, including distraught football teammates still in uniform. Some players skipped the homecoming dance to spend the night with Jake in the hospital. The Warriors wore his No. 88 on the back of their helmets for the rest of the season, and a videotaped message from Jake was played on a giant video screen at halftime of the homecoming game, spurring Fallbrook to a 21-18 win over Rancho Buena Vista.

"It's a close group, and a lot of them have known him for a while," said Joe Silvey, Fallbrook's first-year football coach. "This was tough for them to take. They were kind of raw emotionally."

Robinson has resumed twice-weekly physical therapy sessions at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego after having laser surgery to open up his trachea. As a 17-year-old with an athletic background, he has shown significant progress in his strength and balance, but doctors can't predict whether he'll ever walk again.

To maximize his chances, the Robinsons want to send him to Project Walk, a Carlsbad-based center that specializes in recovery from spinal cord injuries. The cost, however, is $1,800 per week, Laurie Robinson said.

Jake, an honors student who traveled with his church youth group to Kenya last summer to help AIDS victims, planned to attend UC Santa Barbara or UC San Diego and become a pediatrician. In the wake of the accident, those plans could change. His mother, for example, can't envision him being even as far away as La Jolla.

"But I'm sure he'll figure out a way," she added. "Jake is going to do great things, whether he walks again or not."