Article on Kevin Kalinowski, vaulter paralyzed in 1981

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Bonded by injury, activism
Two Long Islanders, paralyzed as teens 25 years ago, died as champions of spinal cord research


BY JOIE TYRRELL
Newsday Staff Writer

April 3, 2006

They were teenage boys when they first met in a rehabilitative hospital in Manhattan, sharing a room after two separate sports injuries left them paralyzed in 1981.

Kevin Kalinowski was 18, among the best high school pole vaulters on Long Island. He was a senior at Plainedge High School, looking forward to college.


William Paul Heiser was 17 and a junior at Wantagh High School. He was an A student on the varsity swim team who played lacrosse between seasons.

From that first meeting in a hospital room, their lives would forever be intertwined. They endured rehabilitation together, learned to adjust to life as quadriplegics and both tried to see past their paralysis and work for a cure.

Though not best friends, they remained in touch over the years, and when Kalinowski passed away in July 2004, at the age of 41, Heiser attended his funeral, knowing that his own life would in all likelihood be cut short, too. He died last month at age 42.

"There was some sort of mutual bond between each other," said Heiser's brother Tom, of Massapequa. "They both gave each other a little strength, a little hope."

Unimaginable injuries

They started out as athletes in high schools just a few miles apart.

In a junior varsity lacrosse game on April 15, 1981, Heiser, of Wantagh, wobbled off balance, and collided with another player whose stick accidently stabbed Heiser's neck. He fell to the ground and suffered a complete cervical fracture.

About a month later, at a track meet between Plainedge High School and Long Beach, Kalinowski, of Massapequa, attempted a pole vault but drifted sideways, landing beyond the protective mat. His fifth and sixth vertebrae were crushed.

Both boys were taken to the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in Manhattan, where they shared a room with a poster of Farrah Fawcett on the wall. In a Newsday story in 1981, Kalinowski said, "I'm 18 years old. ... It's just that I wonder: What is the rest of my life going to be like?"

Heiser's head is enclosed in a stabilizing metal "halo" brace bolted to his skull, but he still manages to smile. "It's hard to accept that I am going to be paralyzed the rest of my life," he said. "There are times when I still don't believe it."



Life after tragedy

After months in the hospital, the two teens returned to their suburban houses.

"They spoke on the phone," Kevin's mother, Carole Kalinowski, of North Massapequa, recalled. "They were both conferring how they were managing, what they were doing."

Eventually, both Kalinowski and Heiser learned how to drive in custom-designed vans. They both graduated from Hofstra.

Kalinowski focused on business, earning both a bachelor's and a master's degree in 1994 and 1996.

Heiser earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and business administration in 1987. Kalinowski opened two video stores with his brother and later went into the construction business.

Heiser worked for Suffolk County Transportation Co., where he helped start the county's paratransit system for riders in wheelchairs.

They shared a bond of activism. Kalinowski founded the first Long Island chapter of the Spinal Cord Society in 1982. Heiser started the William Heiser Foundation in 1993, which raises money for spinal cord research, and directly funds research scientists throughout the country.

When one would have a fundraiser, the other almost always showed up.

Major health problems

But both men surely knew that quadriplegics often face serious health issues that cut their lives short. Dr. Mark Stephen, the chief of orthopedic spine surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital, said that at the time the two boys were paralyzed, renal failure was the leading cause of reduced life expectancy.

"Muscle atrophy leads to a condition where the breakdown products of the muscle are carried through the blood and they damage the kidney, causing the kidney to fail," Stephen said.

Kalinowski had two transplants, a kidney from his mother in 1990 and one from his sister, Kathy Zoda, in 1997. After the second transplant, he developed a very rare form of cancer from the anti-rejection drugs, his mother said. He died two years ago of a blood infection.

Heiser went to his funeral.

"It was hard," Heiser's brother Tom recalled. "It's very hard to see a good friend pass away, knowing that it is just a [certain] amount of time for yourself."

But Heiser found a way for Kalinowski's legacy to endure. His foundation created a humanitarian award named for Kevin Kalinowski. Just months after the dinner, Heiser died in March of congestive heart failure. He was 42.

"They both were dominant forces in trying to bring awareness," said Jim Kalinowski, Kevin's brother. "And bring an end to this."