Newtown High Athletes Battling Back From Serious Leg Injuries

By Andy Hutchison

In sports, it is often the athletes who show heart and battle through adversity who find a way to succeed. For three Newtown High School students, this rings true in the form of overcoming serious leg injuries to play the games they love. Just getting back into an exercise regime so quickly, never mind a return to competition (which two of these athletes have already achieved following injuries in the fall), can be considered success regardless of wins and losses.

Andrew Domingis and Chris Marks — both members of the NHS varsity soccer team who will be seniors next fall — went down with injuries during games this past fall. Domingis started running a couple of months ago, with the hopes of returning to the field this coming fall. Marks, who says he was told shortly after the injury that he likely would not play sports again, is already competing in soccer tournaments and got out on the field as a member of the Nighthawks’ baseball team this past spring.

The third athlete is senior golfer Steve Oberstadt, who was not hurt during competition, but also was sidelined. He was in a car accident in which his vehicle was struck by a drunk driver. After having rods and pins in his leg, he has come back to compete and was the school’s top golfer once again this spring.

“We really didn’t know if any of them would get back because all of the injuries were that bad,” said Tom DiNicola, one of the owners of Church Hill Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, where the athletes were treated. “They all have unbelievable heart.”

Domingis, who was hurt when he collided knee-first with an opposing goalkeeper, went to see a doctor the day of the injury and was told he would not play sports for at least a year.

He blew out his ACL, MCL, PCL, and medial meniscus. DiNicola calls it “probably the worst knee injury I have ever seen in 25 years in sports.”

“I went home and I was pretty mad — and sad,” Domingis recalls.

Domingis, who has played soccer for more than ten years, wants to play in college, but knows it will take a little more effort than he once expected.

After two surgeries and months of physical therapy, he started running and kicking the soccer ball early in the spring.

“I’m going to work out really hard this summer and get my muscle back,” he said.

Marks and a Masuk High opponent each sustained broken legs as a result of a collision. Marks broke his tibia and fibula, requiring emergency surgery. Complications developed and he sustained permanent nerve damage, DiNicola said.

Marks, who initially was in a wheelchair for two weeks, said he started walking about a month after the injury and begin running two weeks later. Three of the four doctors he saw said he would have trouble just running again, but he surprised the doctors by getting back into games early this spring despite not having feeling in his foot or ankle and playing at what he considered 80 percent.

“For the most part my running’s pretty normal,” Marks said.

Dribbling a soccer ball is not as easy as it was before, but Marks believes the many years of practice he has had makes playing the game come naturally and allows him to play effectively.

“To know I can play sports now is awesome,” Marks said. “I can’t put into words how excited I am for next season.”

Oberstadt was driving when a drunk driver hit his car almost head-on Mt Pleasant Road.

“We’re really pleased that he’s doing as well as he is,” his mom, Tonya, said. “We’re just happy to have him here. Everything he accomplishes is icing on the cake.”

“I knew he would bounce back as captain. I didn’t know how he was going to play,” his coach, Jennifer Huettner said. “You knew his drive was there.”

And that’s his inner drive. Although the drive on the golf course is there, too.

He performed at about 85 to 90 percent of his level of play from a year ago, the coach said, and regularly earned medalist honors as the top golfer in his team’s matches this spring.

“He knew he wouldn’t play as well as he did last year,” the coach said.

Oberstadt, though, said he was happy to be able to compete despite being hampered with a limp and some pain.

DiNicola said his office treats a lot of athletes with significant injuries, but to have three very similar cases at the same time is unusual. The good news is that all three athletes have worked hard and continue to push to return to the games they love to play.