'GUTS AND THE WILL'

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jan 10, 2008 | by ANDREA BROWN

Air Force Academy cadet Thomas Avolio accepts his notoriety.

"I don't want to be identified as the guy who fell down Eagle Peak," he said. "But I know it will be that way."

Avolio, who fell 200 feet on a hike in April 2006, returned to classes this week.

After a quick noontime speech Wednesday in the chow hall packed with about 4,000 peers, the thin 22-year-old Washington state native shared a private table with academy brass and the three cadets who helped save him.

His rescue from a ledge near the top of the 9,368-foot mountain on academy grounds involved multiple agencies and took more than five hours.

Avolio wasn't expected to survive. He had a traumatic brain injury, broken wrist, dislocated ankle, optic nerve damage, cuts, punctures and bruises.

"He was comatose. He was black and blue and purple from head-to- toe," academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. John F. Regni recalled of his first hospital visit. "His dad pulled me aside and said, 'General, Tom is going to make it, despite what these doctors are saying. He has the guts and the will.'"

It was a grueling 21 months of pain, feeding tubes, respirators, bedpans, slurred speech, double vision and memory problems. His initial request for readmission to the academy last summer was denied. So, he tried again, finally getting approval from the secretary of the Air Force to return this semester.

Avolio is a junior in Cadet Squadron 21 -- the Blackjacks. He will graduate in 2009, a year behind the class with which he entered. He said he wants a career in intelligence.

"I'm looking forward to getting back in the groove and hanging out with the guys," he said. "I'm done with climbing."

Eagle Peak stands in the background of his everyday life, framing his dorm and classrooms.

"I don't feel any different about it," he said. "I don't remember the accident."

It began as a Saturday hike with two friends. He said he blames himself for losing his footing after taking a dangerous rocky path, which was a bad call on his part.

Three cadets hiking near where he landed helped stabilize him until help arrived. A ground rescue wasn't possible because of the terrain, so he was lifted out by a Wyoming Army National Guard helicopter and taken to Penrose Hospital. He was in a coma for 31/2 weeks.

He couldn't talk or walk, but he had a goal: get back to the academy.

"I woke up from my coma and asked what I needed to do," he said. "Each morning when I woke up I could lay around and watch TV and eat potato chips -- or actually do something to make myself better."

Avolio, whose boyhood ambition was to attend the academy, chose to push himself. He got a personal trainer. He went to a Veterans Affairs clinic in California that specializes in treating traumatic brain injury. He completed 18 of 21 semester hours from the 2006 spring semester that was cut short by the fall, then attended the University of Washington.

There was one thing he let go. "It was kind of nice to grow my hair," he said.

For their work in Avolio's rescue, a Flight for Life "Colorado's Wings of Honor Award" was given to cadets Brett McAuliff, David Blessinger and Joseph Spitz; Air Force Fire Department High Angle Rescue Team; El Paso County Search and Rescue; Wyoming National Guard Air Support Unit; and American Medical Response.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0253 or andrea.brown@gazette.com