From Deseret News archives:
Ortega improving after accident
Savoring the chocolaty goodness, however, is something the aspiring Olympic speedskater can't do.
Not since Sept. 3 when a freak accident during a training session sent him to the ice and fractured his skull, leaving him near death following seizures and swelling of the brain on both the back and front.
It also — temporarily, he hopes — robbed him of his sense of smell. Nothing, not even the rancid stench of a well-used set of skates, triggers a response when held an inch from his nose.
"That's the weirdest thing about it all," Ortega said. "I can't smell anything."
That his sense of smell, and the way it affects his sense of taste, is missing is just one of the lingering complications since he slammed onto the ice. He has lost more than 10 pounds as a result of the injuries, and he still walks and moves gingerly. The headaches that came with loud noises or bright lights have mostly disappeared, and he said he's no longer taking medications to deal with the pain.
"Each day is an improvement," said Ortega, a 23-year-old from Fairbanks, Alaska, who now calls Utah home. "Every time I've been tested there has been improvement. So that's encouraging."
Indeed. But how Ortega got to this point is nothing short of a miracle, he said.
During a training session at the Olympic Oval, Ortega and several teammates were taking a few slow recovery laps in the outer lane. On the inside lane, other speedskaters were being more aggressive in their workout.
But when a skater from Canada had one of his skates slip free during a max-effort interval, it sent him careening out of control across the ice and toward the outer lane — where Ortega and his teammates were unaware of the incoming 40-mile-per-hour mass.
In what Ortega now says is a "fortunate" path, the tumbling skater crashed directly into the back of Ortega's legs, flipping him backward. Without a helmet, Ortega toppled over the fallen skater and struck his head on the rock-solid ice.
"Out of a large group," Ortega said, "he only hit me. It could have been much worse. ... I don't remember anything from that day, until Wednesday of the next week."
What he's been told, though, is kind of scary.
After being unconscious for a few moments, he woke up and seemed to be doing OK. He was talking with coaches, teammates and trainers who were helping him.
While being transported by ambulance to Jordan Valley Hospital, the swelling of his bruised brain sent him into seizures and resulted in a Life Flight trip to University Hospital.
