REHAB ROOMMATES – Queens football players suffer similar injuries

They may have never faced off on the football field, but two running backs now face similar challenges after both suffered serious spinal cord injuries on the gridiron, only eight days and 12.7 miles apart.
Blake Hunt of Flushing High School and Vincent Nollman of the Lynvet Gladiators were initially taken to local hospitals following their respective incidents. Now, more than a month later, the two - Hunt a Jamaica native, and Nollman from Howard Beach - are at Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Center in Manhattan, battling paralysis and hoping to walk again one day.
On September 1, in a four-team scrimmage against Long Island City, Stuyvesant, and Erasmus Hall Campus, at Flushing Memorial Field, Hunt broke the C5 vertebra in his neck when he attempted to make a tackle. The Erasmus Hall running back’s knee hit Hunt in the head, causing it to snap back onto the turf.
“I was still conscious,” he said, “but I couldn’t move.”
Hunt was immediately taken to New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens and had surgery that night. He also had surgery recently to alleviate congestion in his chest.
Eight days later, at Pals Oval, on the corner of 88th Street and North Conduit Avenue, Nollman fractured the C4 and C5 vertebrae in his spine during a game against the St. Albans Knights in the East Coast Football League. On a designed sweep to a teammate, he was looking to make a block when he collided with a defensive player and fell sideways. He was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, and was operated on two days later.
“I hit him from the side,” Nollman said. “My head just went back; I fell back. It wasn’t a hard hit - just the [angle at which] I hit him.”
Entering his senior year at Flushing, Hunt was beginning the process of applying for college, where he wants to study chemical engineering. He played Pop Warner as a youngster in Florida, and hadn’t stepped on the gridiron prior to this summer when he joined Flushing, in their first year with a varsity program, at the advice of his guidance counselor who felt that adding a sport would look good on his college resume. He was also a lifelong New York Giants fan and a football enthusiast.
He had won the starting running back job and was going to see time as a linebacker, too. “It’s hard,” Hunt said. “I mean, I was starting on both sides of the ball.”
Nollman, meanwhile, was out of high school already, having earned his G.E.D. from John Adams. He was currently enrolled at Automotive and Diesel Institute for Mechanics, a vocational school in Jamaica, and was looking forward to eventually enrolling at a four-year college to major in engineering.
Each has no movement below the waist, although Hunt has feeling in his legs, he said. Nollman’s status has improved in recent weeks. He has feeling in each of his arms, as does Hunt, and in his bladder, and can move his torso slightly from side to side.
The two 17-year-olds, so similar in condition, were actually roommates until Hunt’s infection forced him to be moved elsewhere. They didn’t talk at first, but bonded one night while watching a New York Giants football game on television.
“It felt good that I had [met] someone with the same accident,” Nollman said. “I wish he was still in the same room as me, but they took him out because he was sick.”
“Hopefully, he comes back,” Nollman’s father, Mark, said. “They want to push each other, like a little competition. They’re both athletes.”
While they may not share a hospital room anymore, the two are dealing with their situations in similar ways. Neither has taken a “woe is me” approach. They are positive on a daily basis, working towards one day leaving the hospital. “There isn’t a day that goes by, I don’t get new feeling,” Nollman said. “I’m sure I’m going to walk out of here.”
Of course, there are still low points in their long battles. Hunt and Nollman acknowledge they each dream about walking; sometimes they wake up in a sweat when they find themselves in the hospital unable to get out of bed with hours and hours of physical therapy ahead.
Whether either one will walk out of Mount Sinai one day is very much in question. They have feeling and muscle memory above the injuries, but not much below. Hunt has limited feeling everywhere, but not “normal feeling,” Dr. Thomas Bryce said. Nollman, on the other hand, doesn’t have feeling below the waist and in separate areas above.
“He says he’s going to walk out of here and I believe him,” Mark Nollman said of his son.
They will leave the hospital in a few weeks although neither on his own two feet. On Sunday, November 11, they will be honored on the field at Giants Stadium during the Giants-Cowboys game. Hunt said he would make Nollman an honorary Big Blue fan for the day. “I don’t know about that,” Nollman said. “I’ll root for them that day I guess.”
The day before, on his 18th birthday, Hunt is looking forward to attending Flushing’s regular season finale against Wadleigh.
With medical bills expected to reach astronomical rates, Nollman and Hunt’s families need help.
The Lynvet Gladiators will host a fundraiser on October 21 when they play the Knights at Pals Oval at 11 a.m. Besides Nollman’s family and friends, former NFL defensive tackle Tyree Allison will be on hand to sign autographs and show his support. For others interested in donating money or to learn more, visit www.vincentnollman.com or call coach Felix Pagan at 917-496-3446.
As for Hunt, Flushing will be hosting its own fundraiser on Saturday, October 27 against Lane at 11 a.m. at Flushing Memorial Field, located on Bayside Avenue and 149th Street. The proceeds of all tickets from every Red Devils home game are additionally going to be used for Hunt’s recovery.