A warm welcome for Luke

7-year-old hurt while skiing returns home

MOUNT PLEASANT — About 150 people gathered Saturday for a homecoming celebration for Luke Pressler, who is recovering from a bad skiing accident in Vail, Colo.

Friends, family and neighbors welcomed the 7-year-old with balloons, homemade signs, "Team Luke" hats, "Pray for Luke" bumper stickers and even a giant "Welcome Home Luke" banner suspended high in the air between two telephone poles. Two firetrucks even showed up for the party in the Creekside neighborhood of Mount Pleasant.

"I feel overwhelmed," said Scott Pressler, Luke's father, "His progress has just been so good. Kids are resilient; it's just unbelievable."

Pressler, who works for Nestle, stayed with his son for a month while his wife, Molly, an OB/GYN, went home for a bit so their daughter Hannah, 9, wouldn't miss too much school.

"All of us know the kid, he's got this willpower and this determination to never quit," Jay White said. "He's just a big adventurer. If you're in the park, the kid that's going to be highest in the tree is Luke."

White is president of the Creekside Men's Club, a group of about 40 guys who organize community events and decided to surprise Luke with a big homecoming.

White described Creekside as a very close-knit community where many children are on the same sports teams and often meet at the community pool.

So when word spread about Luke's accident, family and friends sent a stream of cards and a DVD with get-better wishes and jokes to cheer him up.

They created a Web site on carepages.com where they would post regular updates on his progress, and friends could post notes. The site had almost 1,000 get-well-soon messages Saturday.

Luke was part of a group skiing lesson April 6 when he ran into a pole with a force so hard it knocked his ski boots 35 feet downhill.

He was unconscious for days, and when he woke up he discovered he had no sensation but movement on his right side, and hypersensitivity but no movement on his left. He suffered a bruised lung, head trauma and bruising to the C2 and C3 vertebrae on the back of his neck.

"When you see a bruise in the spinal cord, that's not a good sign," said Dr. Sunil Patel, chairman of Neurosciences and Neurosurgery at MUSC, who is familiar with the case. "It's surprising that he recovered."

Patel said Luke had two things going for him: that the spinal cord was bruised and not broken and that children tend to recover more quickly than adults.

In a wheelchair just two weeks ago, Luke was able to walk the last block or so to his house with the help of a cane and even gave a playful shove to the droves of buddies who had showed up to greet him.

"He has this 'I'm going to do it myself' thought process," said Hunter Kerrison, a friend of the Pressler family. "Sometimes it can be a double-edged sword," she said with a laugh.

Reach Lucia Walinchus at lwalinchus@postandcourier.com or 937-5921.