TJ Drahuschak was nearly killed in a crash on Route 129 in Trenton last year.
TRENTON -- With a wide smile and a chuckle in his voice, TJ Drahuschak sums up the car crash he survived last fall in four words.
"I died three times."
He did, says Dr. Michael Kelly, the Capital Health trauma surgeon who brought the mangled teenager back to life each time.
"He was the sickest trauma patient I've ever seen that lived," Kelly said, sitting across from the teen and his parents in a hospital conference room recently.
They sat with Dr. Louis D'Amelio too, the head of trauma at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton, and the mood was light.
They were celebrating a bit, discussing TJ's recovery and the day they all met one another, not by choice, on Oct. 29, 2015.
Drahuschak and a classmate were driving to Notre Dame High School in Lawrence that morning, when on northbound Route 129 in Trenton, the teen's friend lost control and the vehicle flipped into the southbound lanes, striking two vehicles.
The driver climbed out.
TJ was pinned in the smoking, overturned vehicle.
Trenton firefighters cut him from the car in about 10 minutes and an ambulance rushed him to the trauma center on Brunswick Avenue in North Trenton.
His injuries were everywhere: damaged organs, bleeding in his belly, broken legs, a shattered pelvis and concern of a brain injury. He was unresponsive.
2 crash victims were Notre Dame students headed to school
For most of the day, Kelly and the 15 to 18-person trauma team hovered over the then 16-year-old, treating, operating and keeping him alive. They pumped 100 units of blood into his body.
He flat-lined three times, once needing chest compressions to awake his heart.
As the team worked, Kelly had concerns, he recalls. "I didn't think he'd make it."
It was not a question of care or energy, just the reality of what the human body can handle.
"And you were wrong," D'Amelio interjected with a laugh. "One of the first times you were!" the trauma chief said, as everyone laughed.
TJ's father, Michael Drahuschak, managed a smile at times, but he teared-up when the doctors talked about his broken son last fall.
He was the first one to arrive at the trauma center and vividly recalls Kelly coming to talk to him. Now, he says, he respects the brutal honesty in the grim news Kelly delivered. No sugar coating.
That's trauma, the doctors say. Joyful highs and depressing lows.
The father also had just four words, for Kelly.
"Do everything you can."
The Swarm
Capital Health is celebrating TJ's story because the trauma center is in the midst of an anniversary of sorts, and he's one of their top successes, ever, D'Amelio said.
The trauma center was planned from 1995 to 1997, and started taking patients in 1998. "So two decades," D'Amelio said.
D'Amelio was recruited to run the center in 1999 and has in turn become the top recruiter of other trauma surgeons.
The trauma center system in New Jersey is well-regulated by the state and coordinated by need and geography. And it's noncompetitive among other trauma centers, and hospitals, D'Amelio explains.
For example, a gunshot victim arrived at Capital Health's gleaming new hospital in Hopewell Township last summer only to be put in an ambulance and rushed the trauma center in Trenton.
The state currently has three level 1 centers, and seven level 2s - the category Capital Health fits into. The care is the same, but level 1 centers see more patients each year, and are usually associated with larger research hospitals.
Which is why, D'Amelio says proudly: "For a community hospital, we have a lot of talent versus a large, university-based hospital. I've been able to recruit a deep pool of talent."
3-car crash traps 1 on Route 129 in Trenton
The center, with seven trauma surgeons, recently earned reverification by the American College of Surgeons. It currently serves a population of 435,000 in and around Mercer County that touches several other New Jersey counties and a piece of Bucks County, Pa.
Despite the talent and reach, D'Amelio said trauma - while the subject of television shows and its appearance as the sexiest of medicines - is extraordinarily expensive and takes a major, ongoing commitment from Capital Health.
For that, though, patients get what he calls "the swarm."
The rotating team of doctors, nurses, physician assistants and technicians are always on duty, 24 hours a day, 365 days. And a dedicated trauma operating room is always on standby.
When a trauma alert is called, the team is waiting for the moment the patient is wheeled into the room. And a swarm of specialists get to work saving lives.
Whether it's a gunshot wound, injury from a crash or a fall: "You'll get swarmed by a multitude of us," D'Amelio says.
A New Family
Michael and Colleen Drahuschak did not know about the swarm before last year, and TJ had never even been in a hospital - and he was a football player.
The Florence couple now have a new, extended family who cared not only for their son, but them.
TJ was a trauma patient for 68 days, and Colleen only left her son's side to take a hot shower at home here and there. When TJ turned 17 in December, just before Christmas, the trauma unit helped them celebrate as best they could.
And the parents became near fixtures on the trauma floor.
"The most compassionate people, ever," Michael Drahuschak said of the staff.
Colleen agrees, but what's impressed her most was how well they navigated TJ's recovery.
After he left Capital Health for a rehabilitation center earlier this year, TJ got very sick. He was vomiting, had a fever, and Colleen had concerns that an infection could be a major setback.
And something wasn't right with the center's response. "I don't think they realized the gravity of the situation," she said.
So she texted a head nurse at the trauma team and she relayed to Kelly the symptoms. He suspected a liver abscess and told Colleen to ask the center to test for it.
He nailed it. "Without even being there," Colleen said. "And TJ went right back to Capital Health."
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"We owe his life to the first responders and Capital Health nurses and doctors," Colleen said. "And and as impossible as his situation was, after the first day, (the trauma doctors) were so experienced to know all of the things that can happen (in the future.)"
In the conference room, D'Amelio pointed to the sky at one point and said in TJ's case, the trauma team might also have had an assist from a higher power.
Colleen agrees.
Everyone prayed for TJ, she said. Notre Dame prayed. Friends and family prayed. And Colleen got to Capital Health's chapel as often as possible.
"And thanked God for what he gave us, and prayed for more," she said.
The Teenager
TJ always dealt with adversity with humor, he says, and "it's helped now."
He's still on crutches, thanks to recent surgery to work on his left ankle - so his foot would not flop forward - but he's a ball of energy.
His summer job is landscaping and deadpanned that he wanted to start climbing trees soon, to the chagrin of his parents, and Kelly. ("No trees please," Kelly said)
He keeps a collection of photos on his phone taken during recent procedures to show anyone who inquires how he's doing.
Maybe he's so comfortable talking about his recover because he has no memory of it. He came to on day 30.
"I remember waking up and thinking I was going home in a coupe of days," he says, recalling how oblivious he was to his injuries,
As for the higher power, he says, when he "died" on day 1, "I didn't see anything."
And he talks of his girlfriend, Sarah Lafharis, who he says also been by his side since the crash.
"He's back to being a normal teenager," his mom says, "Dang it."
He'll be back for his senior year at Notre Dame and hopes to be crutch-free by the end of the summer.
Joking aside, parents and son say words are not enough.
So they hug.
After moving from the conference room, the go to the trauma floor, and while they can't go in, word spreads that the Drahuschaks are outside and team members start to emerge.
"My miracle boy!" Trauma Program Manager Marian Moore says to TJ, enveloping him with her arms. She moves to mom and dad.
TJ puts the crutches against the wall, whips out his phone and starts showing pictures to the nurses that cared for him.
His parents watch in amazement. What floors Colleen is that she knows there's a lot of cynical people in the world quick to label doctors and hospitals as cold and uncaring.
"If anything, this proves that it's not true and there are good people out there," she said.
With a serious tone, TJ says: "I want thank the whole trauma team, the nurses, and everyone who saw me on the first day."
"I want to to thank them immensely for keeping me alive."
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.