He’s a high school wrestler, and a damned good one.
He’s a workout warrior, a hard-charger, and a kid with a bright future. As a freshman last year, he finished second in the prestigious Ron Mauck OVAC Wrestling Tournament. The 2020 version of this grueling event kicks off next Thursday in Wheeling’s Wesbanco Arena.
But Carl Cochran has already won. He’s won, you see, because he’s alive and kicking, competing, and aiming for a championship this year. But back in April, “he was basically dead.”
The Accident
The date was April 27, 2019, and it’s all a bit woozy for Carl. The last thing he remembers was getting in some cardio and some fun with friend Luke McCauley, mountain biking on the sunshine-kissed hills of Moundsville’s Grand Vue Park.
Rip-snort-pedaling down a path and over what he thought was a clump of dirt — but what turned out to be a freshly-made dirt ramp — Carl was thrown 30 feet and did a header into a tree. He was wearing a helmet, and, “That is probably what saved his life,” said his mother, Cathryn Grimm.
The helmet did, at the very least, give him the chance to fight for his life. Because the fight had just begun.
The ambulance was headed for Medical Park in Wheeling, but when Cochran started hallucinating on the way, he was diverted to WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial Hospital in nearby Glen Dale, and was immediately life-flighted to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown.
His wrestling coaches, Joe Giovengo and Ed West, had lead-footed it to Morgantown and saw the chopper land.
Basically Dead
“He was basically dead,” said Giovengo. “They didn’t think he’d live. When I got there they said, ‘Look, this is touch and go. When his mom gets here you need to try and keep her calm. He might not make it.'”
Fear, panic, worry. Carl’s mother was overwhelmed by those emotions all the way to Morgantown, and nothing she saw when she got there eased her anguish.
“They told me that he had survived a traumatic brain injury,” she recalled. “They had to do some testing to see what all damage was done.”
Her son was in a coma and was breathing with the help of a ventilator. Soon they would be apprised of the carnage: Two right front lobe skull fractures; swelling of the brain; the bones around the right eye were completely shattered, probably resulting in blindness; four broken vertebrae in his back; broken right clavicle.
“They told us it was going to be a long road,” she said. “If and when he wakes up there’s a chance he wouldn’t remember any of us. He’d have to learn to walk and talk and learn everything all over again.”
That was Day One. With Mom by his side, visitors came and went as three, four days passed. His friends would ask questions, “and I’d start to explain it to them,” Cathryn said, “and they’d start to cry and I’m like, ‘Listen, you know him better than this. We don’t need tears. You know he’s gonna be good. You know it’s gonna be a matter of time and he’ll be right back with you guys doing what you’ve always been doing.”
Momma knows best.
But on Day Five the doctors removed the tube from the ventilator to see if Carl could breathe on his own. It failed. “That’s when they said that he now had about a 20 percent chance of walking and talking normally again,” Cathryn said.
Carl was still in a coma. There was a bolt in his head, measuring the swelling of his brain. This was beyond awful. Six more days passed.
Day 11 is the one they’ll remember forever. Doctors again removed the ventilator, and Carl responded.
“We were kinda prepared for the worst,” his mother confessed. “But he woke up and looked at me and said, ‘Am I alive? Are you alive?'”
Truth be told, Cathryn Grimm probably never felt more alive than at that very moment. Carl said that, while in his coma, he had heard his mother’s voice, and knew she was there the whole time. “He was like, ‘I missed you, Mom. OK, now get me out of this bed.’ And I said, Ooohh, no!”
“First off, I was glad to be alive,” Carl remembered. “The doctors told me that, more than likely, I wouldn’t walk again. Sports weren’t in the picture at all. I was pretty upset with that.”
Ya think? So, with a young man’s belligerence and a wrestler’s resolve, Carl Cochran got back on his feet. Literally. He set his goals small to reach the long-term goal of getting back to where he was. “They had told me that walking would be a challenge. It very much so was.”
Recovery Continues
The timeline continues courtesy of Mom: On Day 12 he took a few steps. On Day 13 he walked in the hall, and later in the evening walked around the hall several times. On Day 14 he walked himself to the car to go to rehab.
For nine more days he poured himself into physical therapy, occupational therapy, water therapy, speech therapy, and kicking-ass therapy. The wrestling discipline paid off. He wasn’t about to let that tree in Moundsville whip him, let alone doctor’s expectations.
“Once I got walking, I thought maybe (the doctors) were just low-balling it,” he said. “Once I got out of rehab, I started thinking more about wrestling again.”
But he was still miles from the mat. The coma that allowed the swelling of his brain to subside had robbed him of muscle mass. Conditioning was back to ground zero. He started with weightlifting, then worked on conditioning. He got back to the mat with Giovengo in the summer and sparred a little. John Marshall’s new head wrestling coach, Ryan Asbury, was invaluable as well.
“He’s a great coach,” Carl said. “He was super understanding about the whole thing.”
Slowly Back to Competing
Slowly, remarkably, it all came back. The right eye is blind, but the body is willing and just about back to peak form. Carl is 22-2 this year and seeded first in the OVAC tourney at 113 pounds.
“The first little bit was really difficult with the whole eye situation, because having one eye now really affected my depth perception, which made shooting and scoring really different,” Carl offered. “Once I got the hang of it, I feel back to normal now.”
“He’s a never-quit kid,” Giovengo said. “Just a wonderful kid. I started coaching him when he was six. He’s never been afraid to wrestle anybody. There were times when he should’ve been afraid, but he wasn’t. I could put him out there against anybody and he was gonna go at ’em.”
I doubt if Giovengo foresaw Carl’s match against the Grim Reaper, but I also doubt that he’s surprised by the outcome.
Mom is quick to credit the medical staffs at Reynolds, Ruby, and the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).
Just Incredible
Carl echoed that thought, and also thanked his family and Joe Giovengo. It’s been a long haul.
“It’s just incredible that he can compete at the level he has,” Coach Asbury said. “He was cleared to come back to conditioning in August, and he’s been there every day and puts his all into it, whether it’s lifting, running, drilling, whatever it may be. He’s a very hard-working kid. It hasn’t been easy for him to get back to where he is now, but he’s put in the work to make it happen.”
Cochran’s style is speed and strength. Everyone notices the speed at first, but he’s also very strong for his size. He likes to wrestle on his feet, shoot and score. If anything, Asbury is working to slow him down and focus more on technique. Carl’s good, but he’s a sophomore. There’s room for improvement. Want to bet against him?
Cathryn Grimm is content. These last few months have been hard but rewarding. When asked to describe her son, she let out a quick laugh, then a soft breath to gather herself. “Tough, energetic, strong. Determined, funny, kind.”
It was the warm laugh of a mother who has been to hell and back. She is proud, tired, relieved, and filled with pure joy. Her son is not done. Not by a long shot.
(Photos provided by family.)
