One moment Eli Acosta is riding his bicycle near his home in Oro Valley.
The next moment he is lying on the pavement with a bleeding head injury after being struck by a car.
Acosta, 14, was not wearing a helmet.
The teen, who does not remember the crash, spent days in an induced coma on a ventilator in the pediatric intensive care unit at Banner-Diamond Children’s Medical Center after the Nov. 12 collision.
Acosta realizes he had a close call with death, while speaking about his days in the hospital at his home earlier this week. It has changed him and brought his family closer.
The experience has moved him to become a poster child for Northwest Fire District, and to work with Capt. Adam Goldberg by talking to students at schools about the importance of wearing a helmet while bike riding.
It was Goldberg’s actions, along with Golder Ranch Fire District paramedics and the medical team at Diamond Children’s, that helped save Acosta’s life, said Diana Cortez Acosta, Eli’s mother.
The teen, a student at Wilson K-8 School, was near his home when he was struck by a car in a subdivision off North La Cañada Drive, south of West Tangerine Road. Goldberg, who was off-duty from his job at Northwest Fire, witnessed the crash.
“I knew that car was going to hit him. I screamed and within a second afterwards the car struck him. From that moment everything occurred in slow motion. I saw pieces of shattering glass as he hit the windshield. His body went up and over the car, and he easily flew 15 feet into the air. He landed behind the car,” said Goldberg, while sitting at the dining room table in the family’s home.
Goldberg, a paramedic and firefighter for 27 years, went into action. He turned his vehicle around, put on his flashers and blocked the scene. He went up to the teen and saw that he was bleeding from his head, and radioed for paramedics and for the launching of a medical helicopter.
Goldberg assessed the teen and held him down because he wanted to get up several times. He passed on the information to the arriving paramedics. The chopper arrived in 16 minutes and flight time was six minutes to the hospital — saving critical time, Goldberg said.
Goldberg said he hopes that with Acosta sharing his experience with students and others, it will show that bicyclists and motorcyclists need to wear a helmet.
He mentioned four incidents within two months where none of the riders on motorcycles or bicycles wore helmets. Two of the four died, and helmets would have made a difference in three of the crashes, Goldberg said.
“This is an ongoing scenario where riders do not wear helmets. It is repeated over and over again, and helmets do make a difference in eliminating head injuries,” he said. “Eli understands this now, and his work with our fire district and other fire departments and police departments will help get this message across.”
“I can still picture him with his brain swollen and him heavily sedated and on a ventilator,” Cortez Acosta said. “He had complications and a lung partially collapsed. His skull was fractured and he had glass in his skull. He underwent surgery to get the glass out of his wounds. He could have been paralyzed from the neck down, or become brain dead,” she said.
“I want him to tell his story. It is ugly. But others need to know so they can wear their helmets,” Cortez Acosta said. “We are thankful for the gift of life. So many in the community and at his school were praying for him. I do believe in prayer. I do believe in miracles.”
