Kunkle strong

Most students spend the first day of school chatting with friends, talking about their summer and getting ready for the upcoming year.
Caleb Kunkle spent that day, Aug. 11, fighting for his life.
Kunkle, 17, of rural Salamonia, was traveling west on county road 400 South on his way to Jay County High School, where he was set to begin his senior year.
That’s when the 1999 Jeep Wrangler he was driving veered off the south side of the road. Kunkle overcorrected the vehicle, causing it to flip twice before coming to rest in a bean field to the north.
Kunkle’s father, Mike, happened to be home from work because of a kidney stone. He received a call from neighbor Jason Huntsman, that Caleb had rolled his vehicle.
“I walk outside and see his Jeep gone that morning instead of his truck and I thought ‘Oh God this ain’t good,’” Mike said.
When the Jeep came to rest on its passenger side on the bean field, Caleb was no longer in it.
“He was coherent at the scene,” Mike said.
Caleb, however, doesn’t remember waking up that morning, let alone the accident.
Caleb and his older brother Cameron, a 2015 JCHS graduate, are no strangers to emergency rooms. Avid thrill seekers, they have broken many bones from dirt bike and four-wheeler accidents.
It was during the ambulance ride to Jay County Hospital that Kathy knew this trip was going to be different.
“He looked great on the outside,” she recalled. “He said, ‘I can’t feel my legs.’
“I didn’t know what to think.”
Caleb was airlifted to Fort Wayne’s Lutheran Hospital, where he would spend the next 50 days.
Tim Millspaugh had high hopes for Caleb heading into his senior season of football. He was second on the team in tackles as a junior, and Millspaugh, Jay County’s coach, was confident he had the ability to be an all-state linebacker.
Caleb had surgery on his meniscus during the summer, and his return to the field in time for the season opener Aug. 19 against rival Delta was improbable.
In typical Caleb Kunkle fashion, however, he worked hard to recover from surgery and was on schedule to suit up and play against the Eagles.
The accident changed those plans.
“From a team standpoint that was really tough,” Millspaugh said. “You’re talking about losing your best defensive player. There’s no question that hurts your football team.
“It was a really big deal for him to play. For him to not have the opportunity, that’s crushing. You feel for him because of that.”
While in the hospital, Caleb and his family had been listening to Jay County’s games on the radio. And when it was time for him to leave Lutheran — coincidentally the Friday of homecoming — Caleb wanted to go to the game.
Millspaugh got a text from Kunkle while on the float with the football team during the parade. Caleb said he wanted to see the team.
Before each home game, the team meets in the powerhouse — the weight facility located at the southwest corner of the field. There, the coaching staff gives the team a moment of silence to say a prayer and get mentally ready for the game.
“It was really ironic,” said Millspaugh, who didn’t alert his team Caleb was going to make an appearance. “My guess is several of those kids had him in their prayers. And then they see him.
“That was a really neat moment.”
Alec Lewis, a senior defensive back, recalls the experience fondly.
“It was awesome,” he said. “It was really unexpected. Sitting there praying like we always do, heard a knock and it was Caleb. Seeing him kind of put me in tears knowing he was there to watch us, that we should go out and win this game for him because he wanted to be there.”
Jay County did just that, making a defensive stop on a two-point conversion to beat South Adams 29-28.
“I wanted to be out there,” Caleb said.
••••••••••
Kayla Ferguson, a JCHS senior and Caleb’s cousin, came up with an idea to sell T-shirts in honor of her classmate, family member and friend.
But there was another reason, too. Knowing Caleb had a long, extensive road to recovery, the Kunkles might be in need of some financial assistance and she wanted to help.
In conjunction with T-Flyerz, the white shirts were designed with a football helmet with the words “Patriot Football” on the front, all in blue. On the back was the hashtag #KUNKLESTRONG with Caleb’s jersey number, 3.
“Me and Caleb became better friends over the years rather than just cousins, and he was always looking out for me and was there if I never needed to talk,” Ferguson said. “So I thought it was the least I could do for him and his family in return.”
She hoped to sell 50.
Instead, she took more than 300 orders.
Her donation was one of many the family received. Fort Recovery, where the Kunkles have relatives, held a balloon launch benefit before the start of the Indians’ football game Oct. 14 against Marion Local.
“We were at that game,” Mike said. “The team came out, and they heard he was there. About a third of the team — Caleb Martin, Ethan Schoen and a couple that know him pretty well — came along and said hi to him before they ever went out on the field.”
The Jay County football team had a tailgate meal before its Sept. 23 game against Woodlan and gave the proceeds to the Kunkles.
“How do you thank people?” Mike asked. The family received donations, some anonymously, from as far away as Dayton, Ohio. “Nobody did it for a thank you, but how do you thank one person and not the next, not knowing who did what?”
“It’s very overwhelming,” said Kathy, who wrote a short letter to the editor of The Commercial Review.
••••••••••
Kunkle’s upper body absorbed a majority of the damage after being thrown from the Jeep. He suffered two shattered vertebrae, five broken ribs, a broken scapula, a punctured lung and a severed surface nerve on the left side of his abdomen. He also has road rash on his back, various scars from surgeries and a metal plate in his shoulder.
It was the two vertebrae, the T8 and T9 vertebrae just below the shoulder blades, that were disintegrated and caused the internal damage.
He also had a bruised brain, a slight cut of his spinal cord and countless infections.
He is paralyzed from the chest down.
“His major problem after the surgeries is he had ungodly, terrible infections,” Mike said. “That was a big part of his hospital stay was trying to get him healthy after the infections.”
The staples on his incisions from the two lengthy surgeries — one lasted nine hours and the other was seven — on his back didn’t agree with his skin, so the area became infected.
“They opened it back up because it was oozing,” Mike said.
Caleb’s lungs also weren’t working properly, and doctors were close to having to perform extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), a form of life support, because he was not getting enough oxygen to the heart and rest of the body.
But as they put him further and further into a medically-induced coma, his body started functioning more properly, and the ECMO wasn’t necessary
It took Caleb a week to come out of the coma.
“I can remember some of the dreams I had when I was in the coma,” he said. “I can’t remember anything else.”
••••••••••
Lewis heard sirens as he got ready to go to school Aug. 11, but he didn’t think too much of them.
It wasn’t until he got to school that he learned about his friend and teammate.
“It felt like everything stopped,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh is this really happening?’”
It was the first day of school, and Millspaugh also heard of the news when he arrived. As the day went on, more and more details started to emerge about the accident and the extent of the injuries.
“At that point you’re obviously concerned for the young man’s life,” Millspaugh said. “I think he had some very difficult moments we didn’t know about in terms of if he was going to pull through. That made it even scarier. It’s not 'will he walk,’ it’s ‘will he make it through the accident.’”
Lewis recalled trying to practice later that night to prepare for the season opener eight days later.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be the same without him,” he said. “It was going to be hard to practice because he was a big part of our team.”
Much of the squad already knew of Kunkle’s accident, but Millspaugh addressed the team with the information he had and said he would let the players know if he learned of anything new.
“I would agree it was kind of an odd workout,” he said. “I know it’s not an easy situation when you know one of your teammates is struggling, but we need to have a good practice and that Caleb would want that.”
While not always present physically, Caleb was with his teammates throughout the course of the season.
The Patriots took the field every game with a different player carrying Kunkle’s No. 3 jersey. Prior to the Sept. 23 game against Woodlan, Caleb’s younger brother Conner led the team onto the field at Harold E. Schutz Stadium wearing the jersey.
The players had stickers on their helmets with his number, and broke every pre-game huddle with the phrase “Kunkle Strong.”
••••••••••
Mike will readily admit Caleb doesn’t like to be boxed in and that he’s always tested boundaries.
“He’s been one to push the envelope,” he said. “He always has, good or bad.”
Around his family’s farm, Caleb has already been able to operate a combine and tractor — machines that just require the use of his hands.
Caleb is limited to a wheelchair, and only has movement in his arms. On Sept. 8, he could not feel anything below the top of his sternum. Since then, however, that line of feeling has moved to the bottom of his sternum.
He goes through therapy three days a week in Muncie, and the primary focus is on his upper body strength. He is able to get himself from the couch to his chair and on to his bed in the living room. He can also get himself in and out of the family’s van.
“We’re trying to get my abdominal muscles better because I don’t have any,” he said. “For a while, if I sat up and didn’t hang on to anything I would just fall over.”
Caleb says the therapy is fun, but also challenging.
“I thought football practice was hard,” he said, smiling. “This stuff is about 10 times worse.”
Eventually, Caleb will be able to drive a vehicle again with the assistance of some modifications, using a lever to depress the gas and brake pedals. Aside from being able to pass a driver’s test again, the only other requirement is that he can stow his wheelchair by himself.
But he’s not ready to modify his vehicles just yet.
“I’ll walk again,” he said. “One way or another, I will.”