?€˘ ASU's Brown lucky to be alive as accident nearly destroys his left hand Noah Brown's plans were simple on May 31, 2002. It was 10:30 p.m., and he was going to his grandmother's house to watch a heavyweight boxing match. Brown, a rising junior at Appalachian State, was home in his native Keene, Texas, a town located about 25 miles south of Fort Worth, for the summer. A shooting guard for the Mountaineers, he rarely went out after 10 p.m. while living in Keene. But since it was a short trip, about 10 miles, he didn't think anything about it. Little did he know that his life would change in a matter of minutes. Brown got into his Ford Explorer and took off down a road called "Ol' Bessie." Five minutes later, Brown nearly lost his life in an auto accident. "Sometimes I look back at people and they don't realize the opportunities they get," said Brown. "They take their talent for granted and don't know that you can work for 20 years for something and then lose it in a matter of four or five seconds." That nearly happened to Brown, but his injuries were not life-threatening for the simple reason that he was wearing his seat belt. His Explorer was tipped over by another car and it rolled on to its driver's side. Brown, who was not thrown from the SUV, put his left hand up under the roof to brace himself and to keep the roof from caving in and hitting his head. However, he missed the handle at the edge of the roof and his hand went out the open window. So when the SUV turned over on its side, Brown's hand scraped along the pavement at a speed of about 50 miles per hour. As bad as that sounds, it could have been much worse. Had Brown not been wearing his seat belt, there was a real chance that he would have been killed. Brown knows how fortunate he is, especially since when he first got into the SUV, he did not buckle his seat belt. As he pulled out into the road, he was unsure if he had turned on his headlights. While he was checking to see for sure, a van drove past him, stopped, and a man got out. Brown saw this in his rearview mirror and thought for a moment that he knew the man. As Brown got out of his SUV, the man, whose face Brown did not see, bent down and picked up an object from the road and walked back to his van. Brown, who is a deeply spiritual person, got back in his vehicle and buckled his seat belt. Minutes later, he was struck by a young driver who was on his way to church. That driver was not used to driving a manual transmission and panicked when he saw Brown at the accident site. "At first I didn't want to wrinkle my shirt," Brown said about wearing a seat belt. "But I saw somebody comeing down the street and I thought it was my (older) brother. He got out and started walking towards me. He stopped to pick something off the ground... I got back in the car and something told me to put my seat belt on. "To this day my mom thinks it was my guardian angel." Brown's mother Lisa Clark, who is also a strongly spiritual person, is absolutely convinced that some divine intervention took place that night. "We have to go by (the accident site) every time we go into town," Clark said. "And I always say 'Thank you' to Jesus because I know in my heart that was an angel in that van." Brown's left hand was a shattered mess. His pinky finger hung lifelessly from the side. His middle finger was literally turned 180 degrees from the impact. Brown's ring finger was scrapped so badly that bone could be seen. The skin from all four of his fingers and the palm of his hand was scrapped badly to the point that three holes were visible in his palm. Only his thumb escaped injury. Despite all of his injuries, Brown was surprisingly calm throughout the ordeal. He had not injured anything else and he actually let himself out of the SUV, which was resting on its left side. That didn't make the call to Appalachian State coach Houston Fancher any easier for Brown's family to make or for Fancher to accept. Fancher was on vacation at the time and when his phone rang, the news sounded hauntingly familiar. When Rufus Leach, a sharpshooting guard at Appalachian State, died in a tragic drowning accident in June of 2000, Fancher was also on vacation. "The last time I got a call like that was about Rufus, so I thought 'Oh no, not again,'" Fancher said. "They called me immediately after it happened, even as Noah was going to the hospital. Obviously it sent tremors up my spine and obviously my immediate concern was about him not as a basketball player, but as a person who survived a horrible crash." Brown didn't really feel that his life was ever in danger. However, he did fear that his basketball career might be over. Brown was a two-year starter who endured his share of ups and downs at Appalachian State. Though he was a starter for ASU's landmark game against North Carolina, which was the first at the Holmes Center, he often struggled shooting the ball. This was after Brown averaged 29 points per game in high school. But Brown averaged just 6.7 points per game in his two years. He had a career-high 25 points against Georgia Southern, but in other games he'd struggle to get going offensively. He was eager to prove that he could fulfill the expectations that were placed on his shoulders. Instead, he was lucky if he would keep his left hand. Brown was taken to Hugley Hospital in Fort Worth. At first, he received the chilliing news that nobody, especially a 20-year old college athlete, wants to hear. "Two doctors came in and said there was nothing they could do about it," Brown said. "They were probably going to have to amputate it. It was gone. You couldn't see any structure in it. I didn't have any knuckles or anything." But Brown caught a break. A friend of Brown's in Keene had a father who was a surgeon. Dr. Carl Hubbell was called around 2 a.m., and performed a three hours worth of surgery to save Brown's hand. Repairing the severe damage was just part of the problem. "It took about an hour and a half just to get the asphalt out of my hand," Brown said. "I just remember before the surgery telling him that you have to get this hand right so I can play ball. I had a lot of family there and he was telling them that I was lucky to be alive and basketball was not on his mind and that it would be at least a year before I would even touch a basketball." It would be a while before Brown could even move his hand. Pins were placed in the hand for support. His hand was wrapped in a soft cast until the skin started to grow back. Brown was lucky that his own skin started to grow back on its own, so a skin graft was not necessary. But with the new skin growth came new nerve endings. Taking out over 100 stitches, just two weeks after the surgery, was particularly hard on Brown. "When it came time to take the stitches off, I had not felt that much pain in my life. I had all of my nerves gone, but they started coming back and he had to pick at those points." Still, Brown's recovery moved faster than either he or Dr. Hubbell ever anticipated. "They said I wouldn't have feeling after two months, but I actually had feeling in about two days," Brown said. "They would move and jerk at night. Each week we'd go back every Thursday and we'd take the wrap off and he couldn't believe how much it would have healed from the last time." For a while, his hand would only bend at the extreme farthest knuckle, kind of in the shape of a claw. The pins came out five weeks after the accident. "They sent me to physical therapy across the street," Brown said. "(Dr. Hubbell) said 'From now on, it's up to you.'" Rehabilitation process: Brown could still not move his fingers when he started rehabilitation. In the beginning, much of the rehabilitation was massaging the circulation back into the fingers. As the fingers healed, heavy scare tissue added up. Brown was also challenged to do simple tasks such as twist in a screw without using his thumb. "Whatever I did in therapy, I would go home and do," Brown said. "They had all of these little games for me to play. They had me take a screw and twist it, but I couldn't do it because my fingers were together. I would think about how to twist it and move it instead of using my thumb all of the time." Clark said that even though Brown could not use his left hand, he kept his spirits up by dribbling a basketball with his right hand. Brown said that the Appalachian State coaching staff kept constant tabs on his recovery, which Brown deeply appreciated. "The coaches were really supportive," Brown said. "They would call me every day, at least one of them would call every day or night. Or my teammates would call and I'd talk to them." "I don't think they understand the role they played in bringing Noah through," Clark added. Brown's fingers got stronger, but they also did not heal exactly right. His middle and ring fingers curved to the left at the top knuckle, forcing doctors in Boone to break the fingers on purpose and reset them during another round of surgery on Nov. 1. This time, Brown rehabbed with Appalachian State trainers Tony Barnette and Jamie Moul. "They did a great job with his rehabilitation and he was a willing patient, too," Fancher said. Sitting on the sidelines: Brown was cleared to begin workouts on Aug. 10, 2002. He could work on skills such as dribbling, and he'd shoot for two hours each day, usually after rehab. But he could not play against another person since his hand could not withstand the contact. Working out again was good news, but one of the harshest realities for Brown was sitting on the bench while the Mountaineers had their most successful seasons in the last three years. Appalachian State, after putting together two sub .500 seasons under Fancher, surged to the top of the Southern Conference's North Division standings with an 11-5 league mark, 19-11 overall. Unfortunately for Brown, he had to watch while sitting on the bench. Shawn Hall, starting at Brown's shooting-guard position, led the team in scoring with 20.5 points per game and was named first-team all-conference. "You'd rather not even be here," Brown said. "You're happy for them, but then again, you're looking at yourself and thinking 'I'd like to be out there enjoying what they are enjoying.' I was cheering and doing everything I can, but it all comes down to you wanting to be in the games and contributing all you can to the win." Brown went home during Christmas for a month to get away. Though he was terribly homesick during the first semester of his freshman year, Brown warmed to campus and college life at Appalachian State and there was no question that he would come back. Clark said that while Brown was concerned that going to a small school such as Keene High School would limit his chances of playing Division I basketball. But a chance meeting with Fancher in Texas at a basketball tournament eventually brought Brown to Boone. "His coach took him to some basketball tournament and when they arrived, they happened to stand next to Coach Fancher," Clark said. "(Brown's) high school coach asked him what he was looking for and he said he was looking for a point guard. His coach said look no further." "They flew him out and he said 'Mom, I found my school. This is where I need to be.' I said 'Pray over it and God will make the decision for you.' (Brown) had five other schools to visit but declined to go on the other visits." To keep his sanity once he returned, he went to the home games, but didn't go to the road contests, though he'd listen on the radio. He started working out again once he returned on Jan. 10. "I started lifting weights again really hard," Brown said. "I tried to push myself to get better and not waste my year. It was a long year, but it went by fast. You've got to keep yourself busy." Fancher hates the reason why Brown missed last season, but also said that Brown's maturity has grown tremendously from the experience. Brown often passed up shots as a freshman and a sophomore and instead, deferred to teammates while on the court. But Fancher has seen Brown grow both as a player and as a person and looks forward to his return. "The most important thing was the opportunity for him to get a look at the season from the sidelines," Fancher said. "He used the year so wisely. He's been working hard and this is the first summer that he's stayed up here. "He'll be a very good player for us as that is because of the development he's made both physically and mentally," Looking forward: Brown is likely to be the starting shooting guard once the season begins this fall. He's been working with strength and conditioning coach Tommy Hoke to get physically fit (Brown said he developed a gut while recovering, but it's gone now) and he plans to play in a summer league in Long Beach, Calif., once the first summer term ends. Brown said he is anxious for the season to start. He was encouraged by the team's improvement and the wide-open style of offense that Fancher implemented last year. Fancher said that won't change this year. All of his players are encouraged to shoot the ball, "even the worst shooter on the team," he said. Brown, who has worked on his shot since he returned to Boone back on Jan. 10, is a big part of the Mountaineers' plans to remain on top of the North Division. He said he's up to the challenge. "I better be ready. I don't have any choice. I don't want to go back to my freshman and sophomore years," Brown said. Fancher said that Brown, whose humble personality is often mistaken for being shy, has already taken an active role in being more of a leader. Fancher added that Brown's work over his year off should pay big dividends. "Noah's biggest thing is that his confidence level is at an all-time high," Fancher said. "He's as excited as he can possibly be for the upcoming season." He should be. He's paid his dues. The Noah Brown file Class: Junior Height: 6-0 Weight: 174 Hometown: Keene, Texas Position: Shooting guard Scoring avg: 6.7 ppg Career high: 25 (vs. Georgia Southern, Jan. 7, 2002) Major: Broadcast communications I'll bet you didn't know that: Brown's older brother, Jermaine, graduates from Oakwood College in Huntsville, Ala.