Humphrey puts best foot forward following devastating accident

By JOE SIMON

j_simon@ncnewsonline.com

Five years ago, if someone asked Anthony Humphrey how much 18 sheets of drywall weighed, he’d have no idea.

These days, he doesn’t hesitate.

“Nine-hundred-ninety pounds,” he said.

That’s the amount of weight that fell on his legs in November of 2006 when he was a seventh-grader. Humphrey, now a senior offensive linemen at New Castle High, was fooling around with some drywall at his house. The Humphreys were remodeling their living room, and Anthony was simply straightening the sheets that were leaning up against the wall. It was two sheets at first, then four, then six, and before he knew it, every single one was aligned and standing straight up.

That’s where things get a little hazy for Humphrey, who was home alone when all 18 sheets tipped over onto his legs.

“It (the pile) leaned the wrong way and fell on me,” he said. “It fell on both of my legs. I pulled my left one out ... and I pull up my sock, and my bone is sticking out of my leg.”

Humphrey said he was able to hold his leg straight, but his foot dangled off it like a broken branch on a tree. He had a compound fracture, with his foot almost completely detached from the leg. His right leg was still trapped under the 990 pounds of dry wall, leaving Humphrey writhing in pain with no way to call for help. His dad, Bill, actually was on his way home to pick up Anthony for an after-school event.

“I beep the horn, and Anthony’s not coming out,” Bill said. “So I go to the back door, and I knock, and I look in the kitchen window. I didn’t think to get my keys. I’m thinking that little son of a gun must have gotten a ride from someone else and didn’t bother to tell me. At that time, he’s in the house and the drywall had already fallen on him.”

Unaware of the accident, Bill left and went back to work. In the meantime, Anthony was able to reach a two-by-four and, after multiple tries and minutes of enduring unbearable pain, he was able to pry his other leg free. He tried to walk, and “that didn’t work out so well,” he said, halfway joking, so he crawled over to the phone and called 911. Paramedics arrived not long after and said they needed to rush him to the hospital in fear he might lose his foot.

By this time, Bill had been contacted about the injury and returned home.

“I walked in and the paramedics were still there,” he said. “They had him on a gurney. His tibia and fibula were exposed right there and the foot was off. I remember seeing the bone, and the foot detached from it.”

Anthony was rushed to Jameson Hospital, where his foot was put back into place (with 13-year-old Anthony awake for all of it). He then was life-flighted to Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, where he underwent eight surgeries over the next three weeks. Three pins and two screws were placed all along his leg, from just below his knee all the way down to the top and sides of his foot to re-align the compound fracture and make sure the bones healed properly.

Anthony, who was given morphine as he was sent in and out of surgeries, said he hardly can recall the first few days in the hospital. His first memory is when he woke up three days after the initial accident.

“I remember waking up at like 11 o’clock or so — my mom was sleeping nearby — and I was wondering, ‘Where am I at? What is this blue thing on my leg?,’ ” Anthony said. “They had my leg in a big blue cube to keep it secure, along with a splint. I ripped off the blue thing, and my ankle was real tingly, so I tried to put it down, and my mom looked at me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ And I said, ‘My ankle feels weird.’ ”

For the next 21⁄2 weeks, Anthony had surgery every three days to get his ankle wound cleaned out to prevent infection. As the weeks went by and wild rumors at school developed (“Someone said I lost both my legs,” Anthony laughed), his leg slowly began to heal. In early January, a little more than a month after the accident, he returned to school in a wheelchair. After another six to eight weeks, he was on crutches, and in April, almost six months following the accident, he was able to walk again.

He underwent one last surgery just before school started the following year. The growth plate in Anthony’s left foot suffered damage beyond repair, so he had to have surgery on both ankles to keep the plates from extending and causing one leg to grow longer than the other. That left him back in a wheelchair at the start of eighth grade.

“Everybody in school saw me and was like, ‘What did you do now?,” he said.

After enduring a long rehabilitation program and having the plates and screws removed, Anthony was back playing football as a freshman. He’s a starter on the offensive line as a senior and has hopes of reaching the WPIAL playoffs. Even he admits it’s a miraculous recovery considering he nearly lost his foot, had to pry 990 pounds of drywall off his leg and went through eight different surgeries in three weeks.

Still, the Humphreys are thankful.

“We’re just lucky (the sheets) didn’t fall on his back and leave him paralyzed,” Bill said. “Luckily, it wasn’t life or death.”