By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Life is good at handing out unexpected, sometimes brutal, turns. For Nash Lindberg, that moment came on Aug. 7, 2020. Getting ready for a big seventh-grade year at Great Bend Middle School, Lindberg was at a friend’s house when he was accidentally shot.
Facing paralysis from the waist down, Lindberg never wavered. Working hard since, Lindberg, now 14, is resuming a normal lifestyle. He plans to play for the Great Bend High School golf team this spring, and he was recently honored by the prestigious Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, Neb., where he spent 10 weeks rehabilitating from his injuries.
Madonna is nationally-known for its work with pediatric spinal cord injuries. During his stay at the facility, Lindberg was inspired by the photos and stories of previous Goal award winners that lined the walls. He now joins that rarified air as a Goal Award winner.
“Every couple of days or so, I would go up there and read those stories, and I could envision myself to be up there, and I wanted that award so bad,” he said. “Those stories would also give me motivation to work and walk again. I knew I wanted to get up there so maybe my story could motivate others, too.”
The school year and football season were just around the corner in early-August 2020. Lindberg was at a friend’s house when a gun thought to be unloaded was pointed in his direction. Lindberg was accidentally shot by the .22 caliber rifle
Lindberg never lost consciousness, remembering the sight of smoke from the barrel and the smell of gunpowder. But he did lose feeling in his legs.
“It was just like slow motion as I went to the ground,” he recalls. “Right away, I knew I couldn’t feel my legs. I was trying to move them, and they wouldn’t move. I was touching them, and I couldn’t feel it. It felt like my waist was buried in sand from the waist down, and I just wasn’t sure if I was going to live.”
Before the high-velocity round lodged in Nash’s spine, it passed through several other organs that resulted in life-threatening injuries.
“The bullet actually went through Nash’s side,” said Karen Lindberg, Nash’s mother. “It went through his liver, his diaphragm, his left lung lobe. That’s when it lodged in his spinal column at T12. So he had damage to several organs at the time of the accident.”
Dr. P.J. Stiles was scheduled to perform a surgery in Hoisington around the time of the accident. By sheer chance, Stiles had to attend to an emergency and never made it into the surgery. That allowed him to drive to Great Bend and perform a life-saving procedure on Nash. Stiles later said Nash was likely minutes away from dying.
“Luckily he had not scrubbed into that surgery yet,” Karen said. “Had he scrubbed into that surgery, it probably would have been questionable if he would have been able to make it over here to save Nash’s life that day.”
After he was stabilized, Nash was life-flighted to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, where he spent 10 days for the injuries to the organs. He remembers little about the helicopter flight to Wichita, but remembers those days, lying in bed in excruciating pain.
“Nash had pain so extreme he couldn’t even put a bed sheet on his legs because it hurt so bad,” said Karen. “That’s how bad his nerve pain was. Even the thought of someone touching him was painful to him.”
But even in those first days, Nash had a resolve to walk again. “He had told us, prior to leaving Wesley, that he intended to walk into a K-state football game before the end of the football season,” Karen said. “He set his goals pretty quickly, and was determined to prove he would meet those goals.”
With his injuries stabilized, Nash was transported to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln. The hospital has facilities in Omaha and Lincoln, but the Lincoln facility is known for its pediatric care. Right away, Nash was greeted with unwanted news.
“I asked the doctor, ‘Do you think I’m going to walk again?’ and he wouldn’t answer the question,” Nash recalled. “In my mind, I knew exactly what he was thinking: he’s never going to walk again. He didn’t say it, but that’s what, in my mind, he was saying. He walked out the door, and my dad shut the door and said, ‘No doctor will dictate what you can or can’t do.’ It was then I said I’m going to walk again and prove this guy wrong."
Nash’s father, Nels, was right. Almost immediately, Madonna staff put Nash through the rigors of physical therapy. The first tasks were as simple as putting on socks or moving from the hospital bed to a wheelchair. They quickly became more challenging. Nash was placed on a bicycle with electrodes attached to his legs to stimulate his muscles.
“With the nerve pain and the electricity going through your legs, I just cried the whole time because it was so painful,” he said.
Nash was also pushed to use a treadmill featuring a Lokomat Therapy device to simulate walking. “In essence, it’s kind of a robot that goes around you, and it creates the pattern of walking for your legs,” Karen said. “You’re harnessed, so you’re standing on a treadmill, but it’s helping you to walk to try and teach your muscles to do that again.”
Progress was so slow that Nash never fully appreciated the improvements in his abilities. But he does remember the first time he was able to take steps with a walker, and knew in that moment he would walk on his own again.
After 10 weeks at Madonna, Nash was allowed to return to Great Bend, where he resumed physical therapy. He continues to work five days a week with Jayme Mayers at Central Kansas Orthopedic Group, and also does workouts at home five or six days a week.
The ultimate goal is walking with no assistance. Nash currently walks with a leg brace, but has worked up to approximately 250 feet without the brace during therapy. With the brace, he’s able to play at least 18 holes of golf at a time.
Staff at Madonna has paid close attention. His effort while at the facility, and his progress back at home is what led to the coveted Goal award. Nash is just one of five recipients of the award in 2022.
Nash said the experience has taught him to take nothing for granted in life. For his parents, it showed them a different side of the community.
“The community has been beyond amazing to us, from the time the word of Nash’s accident go out, to the day he came home and our streets were lined with people,” Karen said. “Even today, when I get stopped in the grocery store by someone I don’t know saying they’re following Nash, how’s he doing? I think the community has blessed us in ways we would have never expected, and we pray we’ll pay a portion of that back to somebody someday.”
The Lindberg family is especially grateful to the medical professionals who have helped Nash back on the road to normalcy.
“If I could go back and thank all the people on our journey, I think that would be impossible to do because there’s been so many people who have helped us to the point,” said Karen. “We came into contact with the most amazing humans we’ll probably have the chance to meet while we were at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. We passed the PT torch to Jayme Mayers here in Great Bend, and she’s been a godsend for our family. We’ve been surrounded by family and friends that have been amazing and lifted us up in ways, over the last two years, that we would have never expected.”