By Jim Welte
The Marin Independent Journal
MARIN, Calif. — As he walked through the Marin County Fire Department’s Woodacre station in uniform on a recent crisp, clear morning, Capt. Ruben Martin showed nary a sign of the nightmarish path he’d traveled since a similar morning 21 months ago.
A small left-knee brace under his pant leg was the only hint of Martin’s struggle to overcome injuries so severe that his first thought when they occurred was wanting to say goodbye to his wife and son.
Now back at work on part-time, limited duty, Martin said that he has overcome every challenge he has faced and hopes to be back to regular duty next year.
“Right now the sky’s the limit,” he said, noting that on a long-delayed trip to Belize with his wife, Kelli, in March, he climbed a Mayan pyramid in Lamanai, Belize, striking a “Rocky” pose at the top.
Martin’s optimism belies his journey.
About 3 p.m. Feb. 11, 2008, the 38-year-old Martin was in the midst of a situation so routine it happens every day. Based at the county’s Throckmorton station on Panoramic Highway, Martin and his lone partner had just returned from checking on a report of a truck that had run into some power lines.
Upon their return, as the engine driver backed into the garage, Martin moved around the back of the truck to help guide him. But as he turned the corner, the engine was right up on him and he had no time to react. He jumped to his right, barely avoiding being crushed between the engine and the one behind it.
But he was unable to get his left leg out in time, and it was nearly severed from his body. He could see the bone from his hip all the way down to his knee, and he began losing so much blood so quickly that he turned ghostly white.
“It was a freak accident,” Martin said. “We always prepare for the high-risk, low-frequency things, like fires, but this was one of those low-risk, high-frequency things we do every day. You hear about parents backing over their kids in the driveway and you think, ‘How does that even happen?’ Well, how does this ever happen? It’s one of those freak accidents.”
As rescue personnel from nearby stations arrived and a CalStar helicopter landed, Martin remained relatively lucid. He told CalStar flight nurse Michelle Starbuck that he wanted to be flown to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, where his wife could drive quickly from their home in Windsor and give him the chance to say goodbye.
“I had that impending doom of, ‘I’m not going to survive this,’” Martin said. “I’ve seen injuries that are that significant and with that much bleeding and was thinking there was no way I would survive.”
Starbuck told him that going to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, a slightly longer trip, would give him the best trauma care and chance at survival. Barely conscious, Martin relented.
“Quite honestly, I was surprised that he survived the flight,” Starbuck said. “And until we got to John Muir, I did not get a full view of his leg and pelvis. Once I did at the hospital, I thought, ‘He’s going to lose that leg.’”
With his femoral artery severed, nurses would squeeze 70 units of blood into Martin’s body over the course of the next two days. In that time, Martin underwent the first two of eight surgeries on his long road to recovery. For his ninth surgery, scheduled for Dec. 29 in San Francisco, doctors will transfer a muscle in his back and wrap it around his left quadriceps, attaching it to his hip and knee. Severe nerve damage in the leg has caused the muscle to atrophy, preventing him from a range of motion in the leg, and doctors hope the additional muscle will fix that.
Martin is numb in his left leg from his thigh down to his foot. Surgeries have made it better, but the slicing of his pinkie-wide femoral nerve will never allow him to fully regain that feeling.
“This next surgery will give me function, but not feeling,” he said. “But I’ve been able to overcome a lot and prove everyone wrong. I’m just trying to stay positive.”
That positivity is infectious, said county fire Battalion Chief Mike Giannini.
“Ruben is viewed as the quintessential firefighter’s firefighter,” he said. “This job fits him like a glove. And Ruben continually surprises everyone with his motivation and ability to exceed his goals. His optimism and desire to push through all of this adversity is inspirational.”
When Martin was released from the hospital in late April, nearly 11 weeks after his arrival there, his fellow firefighters showed him how inspired they were.
“All I was thinking about was getting in the car and going home and sleeping in my own bed,” he said.
Instead, a donated stretch limousine was waiting for him, as was a parade of firetrucks from around the Bay Area to bring him home in a grand procession.
“To have that kind of response was amazing,” he said. “We always talk in the fire service that it’s a family, but I was able to actually see it.”
After eight surgeries and 17 months of rehabilitation and battling post-traumatic stress and depression, Martin returned to work in early July, focusing primarily on assisting with firefighter training and working 20 hours a week.
“My goal has always been to come back all the way,” he said. “I struggled so hard to get to where I am today. To be in the fire service is all I ever wanted to do, and the possibility of never doing what I love again was hard to grasp. On the other hand, I’m grateful for what I have. I still get to spend time with my wife and watch my (6-year-old) son (Coby) grow up.”
Copyright 2009 Marin Independent Journal, a MediaNews Group publication
All Rights Reserved