Three years after suffering a brain injury in an auto accident,

Nick Maniscalco vows to walk on his own again

COEUR d’ALENE — One of Nick Maniscalco’s sneakers is held together with duct tape, the result of pounding the pavement for miles.

Not long ago, the thought that the 23-year-old Dalton Gardens man would ever be wearing out walking shoes was a remote one.

Maniscalco sustained a traumatic brain injury in a January 2008 auto wreck. The near-fatal crash occurred on a Sunday morning on Highway 12 outside of Walla Walla, Wash. It left Maniscalco in a coma for three months, and medical professionals doubted he would ever walk again.

Maniscalco defied their predictions. He can’t do it without a crutch or a cane, but he’s walking, a lot, and he plans to be able to do it on his own.

“I strongly believe that God will bring me all the way back,” he said.

At the time of the crash, Maniscalco said doctors told his parents, Guy and Debby, to prepare themselves for the worst, that if their son lived, he had a long road ahead of him.

 “That’s if I lived. They never, ever thought that I would go to school and be walking. Both of those things were beyond all possibility for me,” Maniscalco said.

In June, he completed a 10-month program at North Idaho College that earned him a certificate in small engine repair.

It’s a long way from where Maniscalco was in August 2008, when he returned home to Dalton Gardens in a wheelchair after spending eight months confined to five different hospitals.

The following Christmas, he decided he had had enough of the wheelchair, that it was time to switch to a walker.

“I didn’t think it would be very hard, but it took me an hour to walk 20 feet,” Maniscalco said.

He doesn’t recall the crash.

It occurred as he was driving home to North Idaho after visiting friends attending Walla Walla University. Maniscalco had driven there to hang out and attend a Saturday night talent show. He left early Sunday morning so he could get home in time to go to work at his job at T.J. Maxx.

“I didn’t make it,” Maniscalco said.

Several miles outside of Walla Walla, sometime after 8 a.m., his vehicle hit a patch of black ice. It slid off the road, striking a parked heavy equipment trailer. The impact crushed the entire side of his Volkswagen Jetta and shoved the heavy trailer through a hurricane fence.

At the time of the wreck, Maniscalco was an athletic, physically fit 19-year-old. He was a rock climber, a wakeboarder, a snowboarder, a skier, a motorcyle rider. He was also a gymnast, able to do a complete backflip in the air from standing, without assistance from any equipment.

He’s confident he will do many of those things again.

“I’ve already tried to wakeboard. I drank so much lake water,” he said.

Prior to the crash, Maniscalco says he had a good time wherever he went. He thinks that is what is carrying him now as he works to build his strength and train his leg to respond to his brain’s messages to move.

“I think God gave me that kind of an attitude. He knew he could handle the wreck through me,” Manicscalco said.

Being the kind of guy who is always looking for a challenge hasn’t hurt either. 

Maniscalco’s older brother Matt has offered up a few tests to inspire Maniscalco to keep moving.

The first challenge grew out of a debate the brothers were having about the ages of another pair of brothers they both know.

Maniscalco’s brother made him a wager — whichever one of them had the brothers’ ages wrong would have to walk 10 miles in a week.

Maniscalco didn’t let his walker hold him back. He took the bet. He was convinced he had the brothers’ ages right.    He didn’t.

That was about a year ago, and Maniscalco walked 6.5 miles before the pain in his foot became too great and he had to give up.

On Sept. 5, Maniscalco received another test from his brother. Matt challenged Maniscalco to walk 365 miles in 365 days.

Maniscalco accepted the challenge and got right down to business. Within two weeks he had walked 10 miles.

He’s making every step count, and now carries a pedometer with him wherever he goes. He has his stride calculated.

His sister is graduating from high school in June, and Maniscalco’s goal is to walk on his own by that date.

“So that’s some work I’ve got to do,” he said. “I know I will get back to walking. It’s just, how much time is it going to take?”

Maniscalco doesn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the crash, and said he isn’t angry about it.

He chooses instead to focus on moving forward, and being grateful for the family and friends who have supported him through this.

“I’m not stopping here,” Maniscalco said. “This is the hand I was dealt. It’s up to me to decide what I’m going to do with it.”