Kendall's fall leads to an inspiring high school finish

A sense of humor has been a must for Alec Kendall.

It's helped him recover from life-threatening and life-changing injuries.

The Mundelein senior was cracking jokes last July, just days after cracking his skull and being whisked to the Condell Hospital emergency room for severe brain trauma.

At first, his family was told to prepare for the worst, and sat in the waiting room terrified and worried that he'd never be able to go to college, walk or even tie his own shoes.

Turns out, Kendall can do all of that and more, and graduated cum laude last week from Mundelein, while also starring this spring for the lacrosse team there.

"It's an amazing comeback," said Kendall, acknowledging that his doctors told him he was part of the 1 percent with such head injuries who don't spend the rest of their lives drinking their meals with a straw. "I'm very lucky."

On Wednesday when I asked him what he'll do when the anniversary of that traumatic day comes around this July 24, Kendall again turned to humor.

"Well, I'm definitely not getting frozen yogurt," he said with a laugh, "and anything that I might do (that is even remotely risky), I'll have a helmet on."

Keep reading for more on the frozen yogurt.

Kendall has been a varsity starter on the Mundelein lacrosse team since his freshman year. He's been the Mustangs' leading scorer all four years of his career.

He's also a relentless thrill-seeker.

From skateboarding to snowboarding to jumping his bike off ramps to doing flips and parkour, Kendall is up for just about anything. He recently became enamored with parkour, which is the discipline of free running, or using movement of the body and the surroundings for propulsion to get from one point to another in the most efficient way possible, all while maintaining significant momentum.

It's what he was doing last summer upon leaving a frozen yogurt store in downtown Libertyville after an outing for dessert with his family.

In the alley between the frozen yogurt shop and another store is a balcony, about 10 feet from the ground. On his way into the frozen yogurt shop, the 5-foot-9 Kendall did a little parkour, running up the side of the building's brick wall to get high enough to grab the bottom of the balcony. He hung there for a bit, and then jumped down.

On his way out of the frozen yogurt shop, Kendall tried the trick again; only this time, his hands slipped off the balcony and he crashed head first onto the pavement below.

The back of his head, which took the brunt of the impact, was cracked in three places. The front of his head also sustained major damage when his knees were propelled into his forehead as he hit the ground.

There was a large pool of blood beside Kendall. It had sprayed out of his nose upon impact.

"When it first happened, his eyes were open and he was convulsing," said Mark Kendall, Alec's father. "I was the last one out of the yogurt store and when I came up on him, he was out, and unresponsive for seven minutes while we were waiting for the ambulance to come. He had blood coming out of his nose."

"It was scary. We didn't know what was going to happen."

Kendall, who had bleeding in his brain, spent the next four days in the intensive care unit, and then was moved to a regular room once he stabilized. He was there for another three days.

"They (hospital staffers) would come in every day and ask me questions, like who the president is, or what day of the week it was and my mom knew that I was OK because she could see me looking over to the white board in my room where the day was written and she saw that I was cheating and just saying what was on the white board," Kendall laughed. "But there were things that were really hard, too. I had a lot of head pain. It was really hard for me to hold a conversation. I would get tired and frustrated. I couldn't stay focused. I would lose track of things.

"I felt really slow. My cognitive functions definitely weren't where they should have been."

Amazingly, Kendall left the hospital about a week after his accident, but he still had a long road ahead of him, including months of rehab.

He needed to work on his balance, equilibrium and memory. He was also trying to find ways to lessen the excruciating pain of daily headaches that would often last from the minute he woke up in the morning until the minute he fell asleep at night.

Meanwhile, Kendall was adjusting to what might be his new sensory normal. He is limited in what he can smell and taste. He can't smell all smells, only strong colognes and household cleaners; and he can't distinguish any flavors.

For instance, if he had a strawberry frozen yogurt like he did on the day of his accident, he'd be able to decipher only that what he was tasting was sweet, not that it was strawberry-flavored.

Not that Kendall is in the market for strawberry frozen yogurt these days.

"I think I have an aversion to that now," Kendall said with a laugh. "If you gave me a Gatorade, I wouldn't be able to tell you what flavor it is. That happened when all that blood came out of my nose. Something in there that controls smell and taste basically just burst.

"The doctors said all of that might come back, but it might not."

At first, doctors also weren't sure how much physical activity Kendall would be able to do, and how soon.

He had to be careful walking at first, especially up and down stairs, because balance was an issue. He couldn't drive, or spend long periods in class because of his headaches. In fact, he missed almost the first full month of school, and he took only one class during the entire fall semester.

Luckily, he was already ahead of schedule for graduation due to all the advanced placement classes he had taken as an underclassman. So the scaled back load wasn't a problem.

"Most of the time during those first few months (after the accident), I was at rehab," Kendall said. "I was there about four times a week."

Kendall pushed himself during therapy, but still missed the fall and winter lacrosse seasons. He couldn't yet get clearance to engage in a contact sport.

He got antsy, and was itching to be ready for the spring season.

"I finally got cleared on the day of our first practice, which was in early March," Kendall said. "I like to live an active lifestyle and it was hard not getting to do all of the things I like to do, like snowboarding and biking and everything else, but lacrosse is my favorite thing, so I was really happy when they told me I could play."

Kendall, who has been playing lacrosse since first grade, quickly looked like his old self.

In his first game, he scored 3 goals.

Kendall went on to score a career-high 41 goals this season, giving him 124 total goals over his four-year career at Mundelein. He also has 23 total assists and 147 career points.

He hopes to continue his lacrosse career next year on the club team at the University of Iowa.

"I felt like I was back to 100 percent during that first game because everything was flooding back," Kendall said. "It was just a surreal feeling and I was so happy."

Kendall, of course, is also incredibly grateful.

It was difficult for him in the early days, when his head pounded constantly from the pain and his activities were severely limited, to see the bright side of his situation. But now, he can see clearly.

"At first, everyone was telling me, 'You're so lucky, you're so lucky,' because things could have been so much worse," Kendall said. "I just remember feeling unlucky, because this all happened in the first place.

"But my head wasn't right. I was frustrated and angry about all the pain. Now that the pain is better and I'm back to doing things, I really have seen that side of it, and I do know now how lucky I am. It's like I had an epiphany and I am more grateful.

"I think I have a new outlook moving forward."

Kendall says he's also learned a great deal about his friends and family, and about himself.

His parents, Mark and Terri, took turns missing work to stay at home with him during the early days. His friends visited him frequently and brought him gifts and cards. His girlfriend stood by his side and the two recently celebrated their three-year anniversary.

"I had such great support during all of this. For a long time, I kept feeling like I was in a bad dream, but everyone made me feel a lot better because they were always around, staying positive," Kendall said. "I also know that I'm a lot stronger myself now, after going through all this.

"When you go through something like this, it gives you a lot of perspective and strength."

And some humor.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

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