Michael Villafuerte and his mother Susan Galicia stand near the train tracks in Long Branch where Michael was struck by a train, losing two fingers. The 16-year-old has undergone six surgeries and is regaining use of the hand. KRISTEN DALTON Six surgeries and 10 months later, Michael Villafuerte is on the mend. After losing his pinky and ring fingers in a train accident last year, the 16-year-old has regained flexibility and strength in his damaged right hand.
“In a young kid like this and the situation, on a scale of one to 10, it’s an eight in terms of hand injuries,” said surgeon Dr. Russell Ashinoff, of The Institute for Advanced Reconstruction in Shrewsbury.
“He’s doing pretty well now. He has full flexibility of his fingers and his thumb, which is very important because if those joints get stiff, I can repair the tendons but the muscles aren’t going to be able to move the fingers no matter how well the tendons repair. He’s done his part and more,” he said.
Michael Villafuerte and Dr. Russell Ashinoff Ashinoff said there is still some lingering scar tissue around the tendons that needs to be removed and the skin on the back of his hand will eventually be replaced by a skin graft.
“It’s interesting, once you have all the surgeries done, it’s not the easy part but it’s almost the least of it because if the patient doesn’t do the rehabilitation necessary afterward, none of the surgery will ever work because the joints tend to get stiff. Michael’s been really great about seeing his therapist and doing what he needs to do to get his function back,” explained Ashinoff.
“Really with his mom and him putting in as much effort as they have, and the hurdles they had to overcome, that’s really an important part of this too.”
Villafuerte downplayed the accident and its impact, saying the loss of his fingers hasn’t been too detrimental, though it has changed his everyday routine quite a bit. Unable to wash his hair or tie his shoes, he often seeks the help of his mother, Susan Galicia, of Long Branch, who has since quit her job in order to provide full-time care for her son.
“I had to put my priorities in order,” she said. “It’s had a very, very big impact on the family, it really has. I haven’t been able to work obviously with Michael’s injuries. He needed constant care. He’s not in school right now; he’s on home instruction. He’s got therapy three times a week and then he’s got various doctors’ appointments,” Galicia said.
However, Villafuerte seems to be taking everything in stride and, according to Ashinoff, is scheduled for another surgery in the spring. “It took about six surgeries to get him to where he is today, which is, he’s got a lot of the function back but not all of it. He came very close to losing his hand that day,” said the doctor.
Galicia said her son’s memory of the accident, which happened April 4, 2011, on the train tracks in the Elberon section of Long Branch, comes and goes, but they both were able to gain some clarity as time passed.
“We live by a lake, and the only way to get across the lake is to cross a little trestle. He just started to take a couple of steps on the southbound track when he turned around and saw the train. There was nowhere for him to jump so he threw himself down and in the process, the train hit his back and then hit the back of his head,” she surmised.
“His hand landed on the rail and the second wheel of the train was pinned on top of his hand.”
The impression of that April day perhaps resides in the minutes that made all the difference for Villafuerte, who had planned on arriving safely home after school. Instead, he was pinned under the train that had arrived ahead of schedule.
“That day is something that won’t be erased from my memory anytime soon,” said Galicia, a mother of seven, who was waiting for her son, then 15 and a sophomore at Long Branch High School, to arrive home from school.
It didn’t take her long to realize there was something wrong. Michael should have been home by the time his younger siblings, a set of triplets, arrived at the bus stop, but he wasn’t. Just like the train wasn’t supposed to arrive at 3:45 p.m. that day but it did.
“When I walk home I usually take the tracks because it’s quicker,” said Villafuerte, who is deaf in one ear and was listening to his iPod with an earphone in the other.
“Before I got to the house, I got hit. I got hit from behind so my whole body was on the track and I just got stuck under there,” he said.
Meanwhile, Galicia followed her mother’s intuition and drove her car to where she thought her son might be.
“Something inside of me just told me to look to my right and I saw the train stop right before the bridge. So I’m looking over there and I’m waiting to see somebody walk. I don’t see anybody. Then I see everybody looking under the train,” she recalled.
“I see the conductors running, they’re looking under the train. In my mind, I’m crazy. I start dialing my son like crazy but he’s not answering his phone.”
Galicia said she arrived before the police and paramedics and was determined to rescue her son
“I take one look under there and I see my son’s hand under the train. I see blood everywhere. I’m begging the conductor, ‘Just back up the train. Just put it in reverse. I’ll go under there. I’ll get my son out,’ ” she recalled of the moment.
Michael seemed calm and collected while talking about the disastrous event, a sentiment he said echoed his reaction at the time.
“I didn’t really have a reaction. I was just calm. I was just waiting until they rescued me and was talking to everyone,” he said.
By 5:15 p.m. that evening, a medevac helicopter took Villafuerte to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, whereAshinoff was called in for emergency surgery on the damaged hand.
“Usually when you hear about someone getting hit by a train, it’s a big deal. Most times they die,” said Ashinoff.
“Of course, you think the worst. I got there and found out the only damage was really to his hand, which is serious but not life threatening, although limb threatening.”
Before the surgeon was able to take him to the operating room, the trauma team had to clear him of any other injuries like internal bleeding or brain swelling.
“It’s always life over limb so if it wasn’t just his hand, he would have had a lot more problems,” explained Ashinoff.
By the time he was able to operate, the blood supply to the hand was almost nonexistent, threatening that the hand itself would die within six hours. Additionally, two of the three major nerves that allow the hand to move and feel were exposed. The crushed bones were held in place with pins while the thumb was fixed with plates and screws.
“The train ran over the pinky side of his hand. It wasn’t severed but it wasn’t a clean cut either. When you have this kind of injury, it’s not always clear right away what soft tissues survived and what hasn’t, so you have to return the patient to the operating table three or four times over the next week or two after the injury and keep removing whatever’s not alive,” said Ashinoff.
“But you don’t want to do that too early because you might take something that might have otherwise lived.”
In one of Villafuerte’s most recent surgeries, Dr. Ashinoff had to use an older technique to provide new skin for the palm of his hand due to a lack of available blood vessels that would have allowed for the modern microsurgery method that transplants tissue.
“He had to have the skin from his lower abdomen or groin connected to his hand, and what happens is the blood vessels from the hand grow into that skin, and then you can disconnect it from the groin, and that provides a new covering for the palm side of his hand,” explained Ashinoff.
The surgery scheduled for the spring is a similar procedure that would provide new skin for the back of his hand but with seven children and no immediate family in the area to help out, Galicia said it’s been hard to provide for her family.
“It’s put a strain on the whole family. I have to maintain a front. Once the immediate shock wore off, I sat in the bathroom taking a shower, and that’s just when I let it all out because obviously you can’t cry in front of the little ones because they’ll ask what’s wrong,” said Galicia.
“My triplets are scared to death when they see a train. You hear my little ones yell, ‘You bad train, you hurt my brother’s hand!’ ”