Ascension Christian recovers, shows growth in wake of Hurricane Isaac

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Credit: Damage photos immediately following Isaac were obtained from Ascension Christian Elementary School

Hurricane Isaac devastated large portions of South Louisiana. In the overall scheme of things, what happened at AscensionChristianElementary School in Gonzales, La., may not seem like much.

What has happened in the 14 months since the storm ripped the roof off the school during the evening of Aug. 28 and the early morning hours of Aug. 29 in 2012 proves that triumph over tragedy is anything but a cliché.

The private school lost more than just its roof. Most of the inside of the building had to be completely redone. Walls, sheet rock, insulation and floor all had to be replaced.

Classroom equipment and supplies, the library, computer lab and individual supplies students and their families had just purchased for the start of the school year also had to be replaced.

Carol Vaughn, the principal at the school in 2012-13, says the rebuilt facility is a stark contrast to what she saw shortly after the storm.

“It wiped out everything, all of these classrooms and the library,” Vaughn said. “This time last year, it was just starting over.”

Start over is exactly what Vaughn said the teachers and students with the help of parents and the school’s church, Household of Faith, which is located on the same grounds, had to do.

“It was just a very slow, tedious process,” Vaughn said. “The teachers have done a magnificent job. The parents, everybody just really came together. We moved all these classrooms because no one could be in here.”

While repairs were done with the help of a contractor who has ties to the church, all classes were moved to the church’s nearby activity center. Each grade was housed in a large room.

Vaughn remembers the fourth-graders being housed in one room that was separated by a curtain. Students sat on one side and any supplies the teachers were able to salvage from the storm were housed on the other. Teachers rotated between rooms in activity center to teach. The second-grade made their situation work by developing a “team teaching” system.

“Church (activities) were held in here, so every night everything had to be picked up,” Vaughn said.  “We did that for five months.”

Most textbooks were salvaged, but all student desks were sent off for restoration from mold damage. That meant students had to use folding tables and chairs. The only teaching tool available in most rooms was a single white board. The building also had just one bathroom.

“Many of these kids had to be in these small rooms literally all day,” Vicky Broussard, a third-grade teacher and Dean of Students at the school, said.

Vaughn and Broussard credit the efforts of the families of their students along with volunteers from the church for their help. Parent volunteers stayed at school and helped direct children to and from the bathroom, to the cafeteria and also performed other tasks, according to Vaughn.

“Parents were great, they came through with things that teachers could use because you lost everything, your pens, your pencils, your stickers, your markers, everything,” Vaughn said. “A lot of the work was done by people in the church. Because we are a church school and a church community, the church got most everything done.

“The one who did the contracting is a major member of the church, so he took over all the workers. When we needed storage bins or when the roof would start leaking again, they would move them from other jobs to help get tarps down.”

Other schools in Ascension Parish and other outside sources also offered help.

“I know a lady at Dutchtown Middle through 4-H and she contacted us to say they had books,” Broussard recalled. “There were other schools that contacted us that wanted to help out.”

Vaughn said a missionary group, Children’s Cup, that serves Africa, sent the schools supplies that couldn’t be sent to Africa, including folders, scissors, index cards, and other small items.

Once a temporary roof was in place, the students and teachers were set to return to their building. Just before the school’s Christmas break, another storm blew that roof off.

“We had just put everything back, and it was leaking on my desk, on my computer,” Broussard recalled. “We literally just sat and cried.”

Vaughn vividly recalls being inside working when the roof came off a second time.

“I was inside working, and I thought a truck had rolled over, it was just the most horrible noise,” Vaughn said. “And our secretary was walking across as it blew off. Luckily the awning kept it from wiping out cars on the highway. I remember just thinking ‘How can it be? What have we done so bad?’”

The majority of the books in the school’s library today were salvaged from Vaughn’s classroom. Vaughn worked with her two grandsons and several parent volunteers during 2012 Christmas break to restock the library with the books they had.

There were other contributors, too.

A school in Missouri held a fundraiser and sent the school $400 to use to purchase new books. That same school also sent them many books they had duplicates of in their own library. Additionally, Baton Rouge schools, including Dunham and Runnels, sent school supplies.

Ascension Christian also held a book fair at the end of that school year which allowed the school to purchase and earn more books for the school. The old computer lab was converted into an art room, and new computers and iPads have been purchased for the library.

Everything was finally completed, and the students were able to get back into the school shortly before Easter 2013.

Vaughn and Broussard believe the willingness of school and church volunteers and the school’s strong Christian faith made it possible to persevere.

“The morale could have gotten really bad, because the teachers and students were packed like sardines,” Vaughn said. “Just the outpouring of love that came from the church and the community that kept everybody going was extraordinary,” Vaughn said.

Despite the difficulties the school faced in 2012-13, Vaughn and Broussard noted that the school registered more people for classes than ever before.

“We kept on doing praise and worship, we kept on going to chapel. It was important to just continue,” Vaughn said. “It was an amazing year of testing and showed that God is just abundantly gracious.”

Vaughn and Broussard both remember seeing a double rainbow at the school during the recovery efforts and believed it was a sign.

“It was a beautiful picture of what community and Christian caring can do in spite of anything that nature throws at you,” Vaughn said.

Leindecker prevails in the face of adversity

The following a is a profile of a victim of a trauma or crisis for my crisis communication class at LSU:

Credit: Calob Leindecker

Calob Leindecker helped Parkview Baptist win a Class 3A state football title as a sophomore.  It was a dream come true that few high school athletes experience.

Six months later Leindecker was caught up in a nightmare. The thrill of victory on the field was replaced by the agony of physical pain and hardships he couldn’t control. Nothing would be the same again.

Five years later, Leindecker isn’t afraid to talk about it. Instead, he embraces it.

“I guess I have a story to tell and people want to hear it,” Leindecker says. “If you work hard, you can achieve anything. I tell my story, and how I faced adversity. It’s almost a fun challenge.”

On the night of June 25, 2008, Leindecker left a friend’s birthday party to help another friend whose truck was stuck in the mud on the levee on River Road.

He helped hook up chains between the two trucks. Leindecker’s friend and teammate, Orrin Fontenot, was in the driver’s seat preparing to drive forward to pull the other truck out of the mud. Fontenot asked, “Are we ready?” and Leindecker replied, “No.” Fontenot thought he said “Go.”

The ground was wet and slippery. He says Fontenot tried to shift the truck into drive quickly so it wouldn’t slide backward, but when he pressed the gas, the ignition was in reverse. Leindecker was still standing between the two trucks when the front one accelerated backward.

There was virtually no time for Leindecker to get out of the way.

“I saw it coming, so I jumped onto the truck that was stuck, and on my way jumping up, I got everything out of the way except for the bottom half of my (left) leg, and it got stuck between the two bumpers,” Leindecker recalls.

He remembers the night of the accident clearly, but admits the following two weeks are a blur.

“I didn’t really feel it (injury) at first,” Leindecker said. “I didn’t know. I looked down and thought, my leg is broken for sure. And I actually tried to jump off the truck onto the ground and collapsed. The other people that were there were standing around with eyes wide and mouths open and no one was moving.”

Leindecker immediately signaled that he needed to go to a hospital. Fontenot pulled his truck up, jumped out, picked Leindecker up and tossed him into the back of the truck so they could get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

Though he still didn’t feel much pain on the way to the hospital, Leindecker could tell by looking down at his leg that the injury was serious. He says he can remember asking his friends in the initial moments on the way to the hospital whether or not he would be able to walk.

Leindecker says Fontenot’s truck was traveling 98 mph down River Road when a police officer tried to pull them over. He says Fontenot wasn’t sure what to do, and Leindecker told him to wave the officer forward so they could explain what was happening. When the police car pulled up alongside the vehicle, the teenagers realized the police officer was Fontenot’s cousin. The officer escorted them to Our Lady of the LakeRegionalMedicalCenter.

Much later, Leindecker learned that Fontenot’s decision to race to the hospital was the right one. Doctors told his family that if the teens had waited for an ambulance to arrive, Leindecker likely would have died.

The next three days were not easy. Doctors tried everything possible to save Leindecker’s leg including removing veins from the upper part of his leg to use in the bottom half of his leg to try to get the blood circulating.

Ultimately, the doctors could not save the bottom half of his leg. Leindecker was not told beforehand the leg couldn’t be saved.

“We were going into another surgery,” Leindecker said. “Nearly every day I had a surgery, and they would go in and clean and make sure there was no infection, and I woke up from that surgery and it (lower leg) was gone.”

Leindecker has no memory of the moment that he was told his leg was gone, but his family told him about his reaction. “They said I kind of went crazy, but I don’t remember.” he said. “That part wasn’t even a blur, it’s just a non-memory.”

At first, Leindecker’s focus remained on football.

“My mom called me on the phone to check up on me on the way to hospital, so I talked to her for a second rushing to the hospital and she said the first thing I said was, ‘I think Coach Mayet’s going to be mad at me mom,’” Leindecker noted.

Leindecker’s dream was to play college football. So he struggled in the weeks following the accident, pondering what would happen next.

“After I realized they took my leg, I was pretty certain that football was over for me,” Leindecker said. “And I had no idea what was next because that was the only thing that I cared about. I was in fear for a little while.”

Shortly after the amputation, several local amputees helped shape Leindecker’s perspective on what life as an amputee could be like. He credits his athletic background for providing the mental toughness needed following the accident.

“There was a guy, Mike McNaughton, who visited me who had his leg blown up at war,” Leindecker said. “He runs and bikes marathons and stuff and does the Paralympics. He does all this stuff and he was like 45 years old. My mindset of being a football player back then was if this guy can do something like that, there’s no telling what I can do. So I had a confident outlook from the beginning.”

Leindecker explains his situation was similar to that of other young amputees.

“I think it’s a two-way path,” Leindecker said. “You either take the good way or the bad way. You take the depressed, helpless way and there are a ton of people like that. Or you take the high road, and take the best out of it. For me, it’s like there was never a choice. It never came in my mind to be depressed and want to quit.”

Leindecker was in the hospital for approximately one month following the accident because in addition to amputating the leg, skin grafts were necessary in order to fit him with a prosthetic leg.

“I wasn’t even supposed to be a below-the-knee amputee because of the amount of trauma that was done and so high, but I had an unbelievable doctor, Kevin Riche, who put together the bottom half of my leg and made it to where I was a below-the-knee amputee,” Leindecker noted. “Weeks into staying at the hospital, the skin from my knee down started to die, so I had to get skin grafts and stay in the hospital longer. The skin grafts take so long to heal,” he said.

Walking again took longer than expected because of how sensitive the skin grafts were and the length of time it took for the skin to heal. Leindecker took his first steps again in December 2008.

The recovery process was long. Leindecker went through many prosthetic legs before being fitted with one that worked for him. He had physical therapy sessions three times a week for a year. At first, he was only permitted to use the prosthetic during therapy. Eventually, he was allowed to bring the prosthetic home and wear it for longer periods of time as the muscles got stronger and the skin on his leg became more tolerant for everyday use.

He couldn’t play football that fall, but Leindecker was on the sidelines on crutches at every game, and he helped with the younger players who stepped in to take his place on the field. That’s when Leindecker’s passion for coaching started to develop.

Following that 2008 football season, Leindecker continued therapy and training to do what he could to get back on the football field for his senior season.

“I tried to go back to the cornerback and wide receiver positions, but time was not on my side. So I had to figure something else out,” Leindecker said. “Our special teams coach approached me and said, ‘Leindecker, do you want to hold kicks?’ I think I told him maybe, because at first I didn’t want to at all. But, come week one, I wasn’t in any condition to play the position I wanted to play, I said, ‘I guess I’m holding kicks now.’ Because I had to be on the field somehow.”

Parkview made it to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome that fall and played for a championship again. The Eagles lost, but Leindecker got to hold for PBS’ one point-after kick.

“It was awesome,” Leindecker said of the 2009 final. “My last game on two legs was at the state championship, and the last one on one leg was at the state championship. That’s where you want to finish for sure. The feeling was phenomenal.”

Leindecker credits the doctors, therapists, and his family and football coaches with the support that helped him through the recovery process following the accident. “Dr. Riche became a family friend, and to this day I can text him any time I want, and he’s there for me. My physical therapist, Mary Lou Major at Baton Rouge Rehab, was there with me from day one. She was the best in town for people dealing with amputations. I still go to her today.”

“My parents and family were there every single day in the hospital. My mom was making sure we had the best doctors and the best therapists and the best prosthetists and that we were getting the best legs.”

Leindecker also credits his PBS football coaches with instilling in him some of the character traits that helped shape how he handled the accident.

“After the accident, my football coaches were always there too,” Leindecker said. “I admire them for still wanting me to feel like a part of the football program. Really, I think the biggest role they played was before my accident because I think I handled the accident and am who I am today because of the character and integrity and everything I got from going through their program.”

Leindecker says the trauma of losing part of his leg has humbled him and also made him thankful for each day.

“I think before I was a young high school football player who was cocky and thought he was on top of the world,” Leindecker said. “The doctors said I was seven minutes from dying after the accident happened.”

“That makes you take a step back and think about not knowing when your last day is. Before, I don’t think I ever thought about trying to help people out, and now after losing my leg, I feel like that’s one of the things I have the most fun doing and do all the time, is help others in the community, people that are going through the same thing and need help getting through it. It really made me a better person.”

Leindecker says he holds no grudges and blames no one for the accident.

“I’m still friends with Orrin to this day. I told him that night it wasn’t his fault,” Leindecker said. “It was just a big accident. You can’t get mad at somebody for a freak accident like that.”

Leindecker’s return to football was rewarded in 2010 when The Rudy Ruettiger Foundation and Trusted Sports named him the first Rudy Ruettiger Award winner for the “Most Inspirational High School Football Player in the United States.”

After he graduated from Parkview, Leindecker took a year off from football and focused on his studies at Southeastern Louisiana University. The next year he returned to help coach defense at Parkview and returned to an interest he had when he was younger: extreme sports.

Leindecker loved racing dirt bikes and skateboarding at a young age, and after his accident he started wakeskating: a combination of wakeboarding and skateboarding where the rider is not attached to the board. Leindecker was later contacted by Daniel Gale, of Adaptive Action Sports, who saw one of his wakeskating videos online, and asked him if he wanted to snowboard.

Leindecker went to Crested Butte, Colo., to take part in a snowboarding class for a week with other snowboarders who were amputees. A week later he participated in his first race and won it. The coach asked him if he wanted to pursue the sport seriously as the Paralympics planned to add boarder racing for its 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

So he took a year off from college and moved to Copper Mountain, Colo., to train full-time, and he set his sights on making the 2014 U.S. Para-snowboard Team. Leindecker showed a quick aptitude for adaptive boarderX racing, and he was named the 2012 USASA National Champion in Adaptive BoarderX Snowboarding.

But in April, as Leindecker prepared for the USASA Nationals, his new dreams were put on a hold by another injury.

“The last race of the season, Nationals this past winter, I was training for the race the day before, and I overshot a double jump and shattered my femur,” Leindecker said. “I had too much speed, and when I went to hit the landing I overshot it. I came straight down, and all the force went straight up into my prosthetic and blew up in my femur and shattered it on the spot.”

Leindecker had immediate knee surgery to avoid having bone marrow get into his blood stream. After a week in a hospital in Vail, Colo., he returned to Louisiana to finish healing and return to physical therapy.

Leindecker soon realized he wouldn’t be able to recover in time for the 2014 Games. So he returned to Southeastern, where he is majoring in kinesiology.

Moving home was bittersweet, but he missed his family and friends in Louisiana. Leindecker also found his way back to coaching, accepting a job as a defensive coach at The Dunham School under Guy Mistretta.

“I love coaching,” Leindecker said. “Every year I’ve coached, I’ve gotten more responsibility, which is what I want, so I’m really enjoying it.”

Leindecker hopes to continue coaching and do more public speaking. He has already shared his story at numerous high schools in Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas. Leindecker’s message is a clear one.

“Never ever give up. Don’t quit,” Leindecker said. “There’s no better feeling than having somebody tell you that your story impacted them or made them better or helped them get through something. If I can help somebody get through something or make somebody feel better, I hope that’s what I can do.”

Credit: Calob Leindecker

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com! This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.

Happy blogging!