Injured Novaquatic remains undaunted
Denniston was left partially paralyzed by a sledding accident.

By SCOTT M. REID
The Orange County Register

Stay awake.

Between coughs of blood and pained gasps for breath, Dave Denniston kept telling himself: Stay awake.

Denniston, a former world record-setting swimmer for the Irvine Novaquatics and an NCAA champion at Auburn, lay helpless, unable to move from a pile of snow at the base of a frozen hill deep in the wilderness of the Snowy Range mountains.

Thirty-five miles from Laramie, Wyo.

Smack dab in the middle of nowhere.

It was Feb.6, and Denniston, 26, and Andy Miller, a boyhood friend, were sledding when Denniston crashed back-first into a tree.

"I couldn't feel my legs at all," he said.

As Miller searched for help, Denniston continued coughing up blood. His abdomen was bloating with an unbearable pain, convincing him he was bleeding internally.

He fought to keep his eyes open, consciousness drifting away in the freezing mountain air. He wondered if Miller had found help.

And if he would still be alive when they reached him.

"I thought I might die out there," Denniston said. "I started praying a lot. I didn't have any other options."

After 30 minutes Miller came across a snowmobiler who was a nurse. While the nurse stayed with Denniston, Miller climbed a rock formation trying to get cell phone service. He finally reached 911.Denniston was in such a remote area that rescue workers had to pull him out of the wilderness on a 10-foot sled.

Between jerks of the sled, Denniston kept reminding himself: Stay awake. Stay awake.

More than two hours after the crash, doctors were able to determine Denniston was not bleeding internally, but the collision had shattered discs in his spinal column, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

Three hours of surgery a day later at Fort Collins' Poudre Valley Hospital fused four vertebrae. Although doctors and Denniston describe the surgery as a success, doctors are reluctant to predict whether he will regain mobility and feeling below his waist.

"They aren't encouraging," Denniston said of the doctors. "But they aren't discouraging, either. It's 50-50. They don't know. It could be months before we know. Right now they just have no idea."

Denniston is approaching his injury with the courage, determination and sense of humor that made him one of the most popular athletes in U.S. swimming.

"Where's your racket?" Denniston popped off when Novaquatics coach Dave Salo, a regular racquetball opponent, showed up in Fort Collins.

"You still can't beat me," Salo answered, laughing.

"I went up there to comfort him (Denniston), and he ended up comforting me," said Kicker Vencill, Denniston's roommate while the pair trained at Novaquatics.

As Denniston begins two months of critical therapy at Craig Rehabilitation Hospital in Denver, friends are already seeing signs of the same drive and resolve that took the overachieving swimmer to the 2003 World Championships and to within less than a second and a half of making the 2004 U.S. Olympic team.

Fifty-fifty? Rarely has Denniston had better odds.

"I have more of a chance of walking again," he said, "than I did making the Olympic team."

CHASING A DREAM

Swimming is the most solitary of sports. On cold mornings and long afternoons, swimmers push themselves through soul-searching hours against an endless foe, with nothing but a black line to keep them company. A small few find stardom, fortune, even gold at the end of the line. Others find different riches beneath the surface.

"When you're staring at a black line on the bottom of a pool for 25 to 30 hours a week, you have a lot of time to think about things, to get a perspective on life, on yourself," said Jeff Somensatto, a teammate of Denniston's at Auburn. "And that provides you with the strength to deal with tough situations in life."

Dave Denniston chased that black line a lot further than most expected. Although he set state records at Arapahoe High School in the Denver area, he was not heavily recruited by major college programs. Auburn finally decided to take a chance on the outspoken kid.

"Dave doesn't always think before he speaks, but he believes what he says," Vencill said.

Nothing was more sacred to Denniston than the pursuit of the black line.

"To Dave it was the ultimate disrespect if you came into workout and just (messed) around," Vencill said. "He used to say it was like spitting in the face of your coach and the sport to not always give everything you had. Dave always gave everything."

That work ethic made him an instant leader at Auburn, helping the Tigers to the 1999 NCAA team title.

"On the last day of prelims we were having a horrible session," Auburn coach Dave Marsh said. "Seniors were falling left and right. And then here's this young guy who gets up on the blocks, and it was almost like, 'I'll take care of it.' And in his first (race) he's the first qualifier, and we go on towin.

"When things weren't expected or when you needed him the most, he was at his best."

After Auburn, Denniston won a gold medal at the 2001 World University Games in the 400-meter medley relay. A year later he was a member of the world-record-setting 400 medley relay at the World Short Course Championships. He was fourth in the 100 breaststroke at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials; the top two went to the Olympics.

After the Olympic Trials he remained in Orange County, teaching swimming. He was supposed to start a job coaching at a club in New Zealand in March. But first he had to go home to Colorado to renew the tags on his truck.

A NEW CHALLENGE

Salo and some of Denniston's old friends were sitting around his hospital bed reminiscing. There was a lull in the conversation.

"Did I tell you how I got beat up by a tree?" Denniston said with a smirk, finally breaking the ice.

On Feb. 5, Denniston and Miller snowshoed 11/2 miles off the closest road to the Denniston family cabin. After digging out the cabin from underneath 10-foot snow drifts, Denniston and Miller found some old sleds.

Denniston was on his sixth or seventh run when he lost control of the sled, then regained control, only to see a fast-approaching tree.

The injury wasn't his only concern. At the time of the accident he was uncertain whether he had health insurance. He has since found out he will continue to be covered by the U.S. Olympic Committee health plan he had while training for the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials. But the premiums are high, and there will be other expenses the policy won't cover.

A fund and a Web site have been set up to take care of some of the bills.

The swimming world has rallied around an athlete who, Vencill said, "was always there for you when the (expletive) hit the fan."

The Web site has been flooded with messages from teammates, old rivals, fans, parents of swimmers. The University of Georgia team, Auburn's bitterrival, sent flowers. A pair of young swimmers who got to know Denniston at Salo's summer camps have pledged their allowances.

"I don't have a chance to be negative," Denniston said. "I have too many people rooting for me."

Until he landed the New Zealand job, Denniston and Salo spent many hours talking about what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Salo and Marsh suggested motivational speaking.

"Now I know what I'm going to be doing," he said.

There are moments when Denniston thinks about finding a way to swing a golf club from a wheelchair. And there are moments when he sees himself standing and walking as a groomsman at Somensatto's wedding next October.

"I'd like to believe that I'll be able to walk again one day, but I'm not going to get caught up in being down about it," he said.

"I see this as a whole new way of life, a new adventure. Something new, something different. A new challenge."

"I'm going to beat this," Denniston told Vencill recently. "I'm better than this."

As they listen to Denniston take aim at his new challenge, friends, just days ago fearful, speak with a peace of mind. They have been reminded of the strength Denniston found in himself chasing the black line.

In their minds, as in his, he will beat this whether he walks again.

"With Dave, the results were always less important than the process, the challenge," Somensatto said. "And that's the important thing to remember now. Dave the person doesn't change if he can't walk."

Donations to the Dave Denniston Fund can be made by mail at Dave Denniston Fund, American National Bank, 3908 Grand Ave., Laramie, Wyo., 82070. For more information go to

www.davedenniston.com