Tom looked up at the sun, his dirt bike pinning down his left leg, and tried not to move. He lay still, and waited for someone to help.
Senior Tom Rich, co-captain of the men's swim team, was living in Colorado for the summer. On Sunday, July 25, Tom drove to Montrose, Colo., to enjoy a day off work with a ride on his dirt bike.
Just a month before the start of his senior year, Tom hoped to make the NCAA Div. III swimming championships. But that afternoon, Tom's collegiate swimming career almost ended forever.
After riding for about an hour and a half, Tom was heading back to his car when he met Jason Hawks, another rider. It was a scorching-hot 110 degrees, so the two riders had to return to their cars for more water.
The riders veered off on different trails as they traversed the rolling sand dunes. The dunes, Tom said, were taller than any building around campus.
"You just climb straight up and go straight down and you fly through them," he said.
One sand dune surprised him. He accelerated at the top of a dune, but the drop on the other side was steeper than he anticipated. He landed on a large rock at the bottom, and his bike's suspension collapsed.
Once Tom's shock absorbers bottomed out, his arms, still gripping the handlebars, took the rest of the crushing impact.
"I remember hitting my head, the next thing I know I'm 20 feet away," he said. Hawks eventually came around and asked if he was OK.
"I said, ‘my coach is gonna kill me,'" he recalled, referring to men's swim coach Adam Cohen. "I said: ‘I think I hurt my arms,' and he said, ‘Yeah they're broken.'"
Tom sat up, Hawks lifted the bike off his leg, and Tom lifted up his arms. His hands looked like they were connected to his arms by Slinkies. Bones in his right and left arms were jutting out to the side above both wrists. He couldn't move any of his fingers, but he felt no pain.
 "Photo: Photo provided by Tom Rich for The DePauw")
Photo provided by Tom Rich for The DePauw
Senior Tom Rich's broken arms and wrists, pictured right after his July dirt bike accident.
Hawks asked Tom if he should call an ambulance, and Tom, still pain free, said no. Instead, Hawks hopped on his bike to ride back to his truck and take Tom to the hospital himself. Hawks helped Tom walk to the truck, but Tom propped his elbow against the door of the truck to climb in.
At the hospital the pain in his arms set in, and doctors immediately put him on morphine. His right wrist bones were obliterated — the medical term is "Rubik's wrist," named for the puzzling cube. Dozens of other bones in his left wrist, arms and legs were broken and fractured.
"I really don't remember much for the next five days after that," Tom said.
After eight surgeries and four weeks at home in Clearwater, Fla., Tom returned to school a week-and-a-half into the semester. Six weeks after his accident, he was back at DePauw. His friends and roommates picked him up from the airport as he arrived on a wheelchair.
"I could tell that he still had the same spirit about him," senior Josh Baugh said. "He was still the same Tom."
Not sure what to expect from Tom, Coach Cohen planned alternative activities like student coaching.
"People who know the swimming program know we really view ourselves as a family," Cohen said. "So the question was how to keep this kid in the fold."
When captain-run practices began before fall break, Tom was on the deck every day with his team — wanting to get back to the sport, hating that his teammates were working hard when he wasn't. Tom looked forward to getting home for fall break to have his final surgery.
Four days after surgery, Tom was back in the pool, even though his doctors told him to wait two weeks.
"It felt like I was back on the team and never left," Tom said.
Not only did Tom's return reinforce a strong work ethic, but having him back in the pool added to the team's energy during practices.
"Tom is the guy you can count on to make everyone laugh," said Cohen. "It'd be a little less fun, and to suddenly not have him be a part of us his senior year would've been weird on all of us."
As the weeks passed, Tom's strength improved. In early December, he made the roster for the DePauw Invitational. He wasn't going to swim, but a relay slot opened and Tom's hand shot up to volunteer. Four months and one week after the crash, he was competing.
"He started doing full practices and guys were surprised," Baugh said. "Then he started beating a couple guys, then he started being his old self and saying like ‘I'm gonna beat you if you don't start working harder.'"
Hard-fought recovery: Complete.
Determined pursuit of a roster spot: Successful.
And this Monday, Tom found out he'll be swimming at the SCAC conference championships.
Looking back on the lesson learned, Tom says the day that almost ended his swimming career ended his dirt biking career.
"I think of myself as extremely lucky," Tom said. "I'm done with dirt biking, it's over. I think I can only get away with something like that once."
