Friends of Pat - Articles

Text Box: Soccer clinic to aid injured Masco standout By Ethan Forman
Staff writer MIDDLETON - Former Masconomet Regional High soccer captain Patrick Killelea, 22, suffered a severe brain injury this spring when he fell off an escalator at Denver International Airport during a ski trip. The popular and athletic University of Rhode Island senior had been leaning on the handrail and a wall as the escalator descended when the wall ended and he toppled about 25 feet, his mother said."He flew out there and never got out of the airport," said his mother, Marianne Killelea. Most days she spends 12 to 14 hours with him, either at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital or at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was transferred this week with pneumonia. He has made five trips back and forth between these Boston hospitals. His medical expenses are adding up, and now his former Chieftains teammates and coaches are kicking into high gear to help. On Monday, at the East Street field in Middleton, they will hold a kids' soccer clinic to benefit a fund set up in Patrick's name. After his fall on March 12, the 2002 Masco graduate wound up in the intensive care unit in a coma at the Denver Health Medical Center, where he stayed for six weeks before being airlifted to Spaulding. Because of the swelling and bleeding in his brain, he was placed in a drug-induced coma that shut down most of his brain and body activity. "He's emerging from the coma," his mother said yesterday from his room in the Mass General. The ordeal has taken its toll on the Middleton family, which also includes his father, John, and his younger twin siblings, Meghan and Kevin. Since March, Marianne Killelea has been on leave from Verizon, where she works as a staff consultant in the technology department. "You just do what you have to do," she said. When friends and family are unable to sit with her son, she pays an aide to visit him, an expense not covered by insurance. She also pays to bring in a massage therapist to help her son cope with muscle spasms. "The community has been wonderful," she said, as friends have been delivering meals and walking the family's dog, Brady. Soccer clinic organizer Justin Geibel, 20, of Boxford graduated from Masco two years behind Killelea with his brother and sister. He played soccer with Patrick and Kevin, with whom he is close. All the Killelea kids played in high school, Geibel said, so it seemed natural to use soccer as a way to benefit the family. "That is where his close base was around," said Geibel, who plays soccer at the University of Vermont. Both Geibel and Marianne Killelea described Patrick as a talented soccer star, making the Division 1 University of Rhode Island team as a walk-on in his freshman year. But because of the competitive pressure, and the fact that he was red-shirted as a freshman and would have sat out his sophomore year, he decided not to continue on the team. But he still played on a semiprofessional team in the area. "He's a fun-loving kid," his mother said. If you go What: Soccer clinic to benefit Patrick Killelea For: Kids ages 8 to 16 When: Monday (rain date Tuesday) Time: 4 to 7 p.m, registration starts at 3:30 p.m. Why: Killelea suffered a head injury March 12 and is still in the hospital. Cost: $20 per player For more information: 978-766-8052 To help out: Send donations to "Friends of Pat" Danvers Bank, c/o Box 150, Danvers, MA 01923-9974, attention Middleton Office/Chris.

Text Box: Too hopeful to give up By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist | August 4, 2006 A single instant can forever change a life -- a glimpse, a crash, a flick, a gust. For Patrick Killelea, outgoing college kid and nimble athlete, it was a rare moment of imbalance as he happily rode down an escalator banister at Denver International Airport on his way to a spring break skiing vacation with friends. He plunged 30 feet, landed on his head, and suffered a devastating brain injury. That was March 12. He spent six weeks in the intensive care unit of a Denver hospital, much of it in a medically induced coma. In late April, he was flown to Boston, to the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where his intensive therapy has been interrupted by emergency trips to Mass. General to fight off pneumonia. He must use a wheelchair, is unable to speak clearly, and has limited use of his arms and legs. And it gets worse. It gets worse because the 22-year-old from Middleton is in a race for his life, probably unwittingly. Although doctors initially thought he was capable of a full recovery, his progress has been far slower than anyone hoped. So slow, in fact, that his insurance company, Tufts Health Plan, no longer wants to spend the money to keep him at Spaulding. But without the world-renowned facilities and brain trauma specialists of Spaulding, Killelea is unlikely to ever break out of his hazy state. Slouched in a lobby chair at Spaulding, her son three floors above, Marianne Killelea is adamant that Patrick has shown improvement. He nods on command, she said. He makes specific sounds in response to questions. He has moved his entire left side. Some of his progress, she conceded, was wiped away by his last bout with pneumonia, but he is starting anew. ``This shows his brain will function," she said. ``That's the start of interactive therapy. That's what they need." But then she opened a bag crammed with sparely worded notices from Tufts saying it will no longer foot the hospital bill. The letters are brutal for their lack of humanity, void of even a single word of sympathy. Each one begins with the simple phrase, ``Your coverage has been denied." They offer nursing home coverage for a patient who needs so much more. Asked if she has the money to pay the $1,600 daily cost of Spaulding, Marianne, 51, says simply, ``We have nothing. We exhausted everything." Everything, that is, but her heart. She quit her job as a staff consultant at Verizon. She spends morning, noon, and night at Spaulding, bathing her son, taking him for walks, speaking to him, for him, goading him toward a recovery she is positive he will have. She sees hope in every movement of his fingers, every flicker of his lips. She has no other choice. Patrick's doctor, David Burke, is more cautious, saying that every time Killelea shows improvement in his brain, pneumonia kicks in and he has a setback. Still, he said, he'd like two more weeks of intensive therapy if the insurance company will fund it. ``He was making some meaningful noises, properly timed to show he was making some primitive response," Burke said. ``About 80 percent of our patients do come out and interact. If there's any family that deserves success, it's this family." Tufts officials were sympathetic but unapologetic on the phone yesterday. ``Sometimes we end up with the unfortunate situation where the progression stops, and the facility wants to make room for other patients, and a transition is necessary," said Allen Hinkle, the carrier's chief medical officer. ``It's tragic for the family when that occurs, and we feel as bad for the family, but that's how the process works," Hinkle added . Marianne isn't ready to let that process work. To send her oldest son to a nursing home is to give up hope that he will ever walk again, talk again, be the person she has always known. ``He'll be dead," she said. ``I can't let him go there." Tufts wants Patrick Killelea out of Spaulding. Marianne won't let him leave. How do you fault a mother for that? Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com. © Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

Text Box: Critical care By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist | March 6, 2007 As you watch the posturing in Washington over the outrageous treatment of injured soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, think about a young man named Patrick Killelea. Killelea isn't a soldier, but a college student who plummeted backward off the side of an escalator, falling 30 feet and landing on his head. He spent less than three months in Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital before his insurance company, Tufts Health Plan, began peppering his mother with notices saying it was cutting off his coverage. It was awful. Patrick was in a semi-catatonic state, making nowhere near the progress that doctors had hoped for. Marianne Killelea was panicked, exhausted, and defiant. Tufts officials wanted him moved to a nursing home, where he would be warehoused for life. "Sometimes we end up with the unfortunate situation where the progression stops and the facility wants to make room for other patients," a Tufts spokesman said at the time, for a column I wrote in August about the Killeleas' plight. "That's how the process works." In the months since then , the story has taken a very different turn. In the days after the column, a Boston power broker quietly intervened to keep Killelea at Spaulding for a few more months. Two wealthy benefactors gave the family $25,000 apiece to get Killelea the treatment that might help. Friends and family in Middleton held an event that netted $70,000 for his recovery. In late November, with Tufts clamping down, Marianne Killelea had her son moved to a highly recommended rehabilitation facility known as Crotched Mountain in Greenfield, N.H., where he has been getting hours of physical, occupational, and hydrotherapy every day. And that's only part of it. Marianne rented a house nearby so she could see her son each day. Patrick's brother took a semester off from Providence College to take part in his therapy. Patrick's father and sister drive up for regular visits. The result: A kid who had to be lifted off his hospital bed just a few months ago walked 500 steps last week, with the help of a health aide. He walked. " When I come in, he'll give me a thumbs up," his mother said. "I'll ask a question, and he'll give me a yes or no answer, shaking his head." Crotched Mountain, Marianne said, is a gorgeous facility, filled with enthusiastic young aides who push her son as hard as he can go every single day. "The first thing you feel in here is, my God, it's so calm," she said. "It's so calm and so bright. It's more like walking into someone's home than walking into a hospital." Compare that to Building 18 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where soldiers with brain injuries and severed limbs are sent for rehabilitation. The Washington Post uncovered a filthy, moldy facility overrun by rodents and cockroaches, a place with holes in the floors and ceilings, shabby mattresses, few health workers, and a thick bureaucracy that relegates therapy to an afterthought. It's a place where injured soldiers are, in so many cases, left on their own. The government sent them into combat for a cause that is remarkably unclear, then neglected them in their time of greatest need. Support our troops, indeed. It is a national disgrace. Marianne Killelea and her family fought on behalf of her son. She has fought his condition. She has fought state bureaucracy. She has fought the insurance company. His funding is due to run out by September; she will fight for more. "I was told at the beginning that if Patrick survives, this will be a very long road," she said. "If it takes five years, it's five years. I just wanted that road." It's the beauty of unwavering support, so crucial to recovery, especially in brain injuries. For so many injured soldiers, the road to recovery ended at Walter Reed, the exact place it should have began.

Text Box: Flanagan: Join Pat's fight By Teddy Flanagan/ Sitting in | Friday, August 4, 2006 It's been a difficult year for kids in the Tri-Town, particularly for members of the Masco community. Keith Koster's death was the most shocking tragedy to hit the school in years because of the violent nature of his car-jacking and the subsequent fatal crash. Amanda Reyes' car accident was, of course, magnified in the glare of her pending high school graduation. It's impossible to forget tragedies that occur so close to home, and grab the local headlines so forcefully. What is sometimes lost in all this turmoil is the ongoing struggle of Pat Killelea. Pat, who is 22-years-old and a 2002 graduate of Masco, is fighting for his life right here in Boston. He sustained severe brain injuries back in March when he fell from an escalator in the Denver International Airport.Pat spent the first six weeks after his March 12th accident in an intensive care unit in Denver, outside the reach of the support system that exists in Topsfield, Boxford and his hometown, Middleton. In April, Pat was airlifted to the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in downtown Boston. He is emerging from a medically induced coma and fighting to overcome recurring bouts of pneumonia. Now that Pat is back home, the community has a unique opportunity, some might even say obligation, to help. Much of the financial burden for Pat's recovery has fallen on his family. Pat's mother, Marianne, has left her job with Verizon to be at her son's bedside. The Killelea's are also paying out of pocket for extra medical attention and massage therapy to assist with his rehab. With hospital staffing levels at an all-time low, the extra care isn't just an option, it's a necessity. The critical moment in Pat's recovery is now. He faces the possibility of being transferred out of Spaulding to a facility in Middleborough. A move now would represent a tremendous setback in his recovery. While the pneumonia has hurt his progress, Pat's visitors can testify that his spirit is alive and fighting. Patty Walsh, who is helping to organize a fundraiser for Pat this month, says visiting him "you get the feeling he knows you're there. He's listening you. Believe me, when his mother is in that room he knows it." The fund-raiser for Pat will be held Friday, Aug. 25 at the Topsfield Fairgrounds. It's a chance for friends, neighbors and well-wishers alike to contribute to his recovery in a concrete and meaningful way. Tickets cost $35 and include dinner, entertainment, a raffle and live auction. There are close to a hundred auction items up for grabs. Many people will, of course, remember Pat as an incredible athlete, the Masco captain sprinting down the soccer field like a gazelle. (He also walked-on to the University of Rhode Island varsity soccer team as a freshman.) Many of the auction items reflect this passion for sports; there are Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots tickets on the bidding list. Golfers are especially encouraged to attend, because hard-to-come-by tee times are available from Ipswich's Turner Hill, the Salem Country Club, Middleton Golf Club and Breton Woods. The list of items goes on-and-on, including restaurant outings, hotel stays and spa certificates.

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