>> GREG KHACHADOURIAN: I’ve known Keith for ten years now.
Keith is a dedicated dad, and he approached his coaching in the same way.
>> GK: I met Keith in our neighborhood at Lakes of Laguna and West Palm Beach, he would
always be there, he was always reliable.
When I needed him to be there to help run practice he would always be there to lend
a helping hand.
>> OFFICER JOE LUCIANO: Officer Gorski worked most of his career at West Palm Beach Police
Department in Patrol, and recently he took a job on a motorcycle.
Officer Gorski is one of the hardest working Police Officers in the agency.
He’s shown that work ethic out there in the streets, enforcing traffic eight hours
a day.
>> KEITH GORSKI: I very much enjoyed being on the motorcycle because I enjoyed the camaraderie,
and we would pretty much go to breakfast together, go to lunch together, and in between we’d
do whatever we needed to do.
>> KG: I was out on Congress and I was monitoring traffic, and uh, a car came speeding by me
at some point, and I supposedly tried to get behind it.
>> OFFICER L: As Officer Gorski came upon this intersection, a vehicle pulled out and
stopped in the middle of the road, trying to make a left hand turn.
>> KG: And I wasn’t able to get out of her way, and I actually ran into the front of
her car.
>> OFFICER L: He immediately left the motorcycle, and continued about 90 to 100 feet down the
roadway, and wound up staying in the middle of the road lying flat on his back.
>> OFFICER L: When the medics arrived, they tended to Officer Gorski.
They got him in an ambulance as fast as they could to rush him to St. Mary’s trauma unit.
>> ROBIN DAVIS: Officer Gorski was on his way here to St. Mary’s.
The ground crew had alerted us his injuries.
We were ready in the trauma room with a neurosurgeon, the orthopedics, um, trauma surgeon of course,
and a full staff ready to take care of Keith as soon as he was here.
>> ROBERT BORREGO: We stabilized him here in the trauma bay, when he first present to
us, then once we stabilize him and we sure that his vital signs are stable then we move
him to the x-ray department and we evaluate the brain with a CAT scan.
And then straight from there he went to the Intensive Care Unit.
>> RD: Keith was here about a month, he spent two weeks in our ICU, he followed up in the
step-down ICU, and recovered quite well, quite quickly, and went off to Shepherd from our
step-down unit.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: I heard about the Shepherd Center, that they specialized in brain injury, and
I went ahead and researched and thought it would be a great fit for my husband.
>> DR.
ANDREW DENNISON: Mr. Gorski’s main issue when he first came here was trouble with confusion,
because he was still in what we call Post Traumatic Amnesia, where he wasn’t quite
able to put together the pieces of where he was and what had happened to him.
In addition to that he was also having a lot of pain, and you can imagine how difficult
that would be to be confused but still be having pain and being in all these braces
and requiring all the nursing care that you receive when you’re in the hospital.
>> TAMMY ARNOLD: Keith arrived December 21st, and at that point he was very confused.
This was his first rehab, he was very dependent for all physical activities, to include self-care,
feeding himself, memory, cognition, communication, he needed total assist when he got here.
>> TA: During Keith’s stay he made great gains.
We call him a rock star.
He came from totally dependent stage in all aspects - cognitively, physically, to pretty
much supervision.
And he is able to do all his self-grooming, all his cognitive aspects such as communication,
expression, memory, problem-solving, with very, very little assist at this point.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: Keith has a strong will about him.
So when he puts his mind to something, he focuses on it, and goes for it.
And Shepherd Center put him on a strict regimen schedule of aggressive therapy and he stayed
with it and got great results out of it.
>> KG: The way Shepherd Center does its rehabilitation is different than most places.
They are definitely one of the best places as far as rehab, for people that have had
some injuries kind of similar to mine.
Or worse.
I mean, lucky for me I got to go there and experience it firsthand.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: It was good for me to see Keith’s therapist really push him in his therapy,
and give him the support that he needed to get through the day.
I got to practice Keith’s daily living skills here at the Shepherd Center.
They took us out into the community, showed us how to properly use the wheelchair up and
down curves, just safety awareness, you know, watch out for cars, how to appropriately stand
with Keith on the corner.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: We also got to practice how to transfer Keith out of the car with the wheelchair,
and it was amazing how quickly I was able to pick up on all the certain techniques to
help out and make the situation a lot easier.
Family training was a good way for me to learn about Keith’s needs when he arrives back
home.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: I feel very fortunate that Keith had the opportunity to go to the Shepherd Center
for his rehabilitation.
He’s made tremendous progress, I completely feel that had he not gone there, I don’t
know if he would be where he is right now.
>> OFFICER L: Keith was released from the Shepherd Center and returned back to West
Palm Beach.
He was greeted by several members of our police department, and all his motorcycle team.
They responded to the airport, and they were allowed actually on a tarmac to see Keith
come off the plane and welcome him home.
>> RD: After he had finished up his rehab there, he came over here to St. Mary’s and
followed up in our outpatient therapy program.
>> KG: My therapy, I go three days a week.
I’ll see my physical therapist first where he’ll do a bunch of stretching.
My second therapist is what they call the occupational therapist, where they’ll go
in there and work my elbow, my shoulder.
They also have me seeing a speech therapist to try and make sure that’s all good.
So I’ll see each of them for roughly 45 minutes, then I’m done for the day.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: Well the community in our area has definitely been very supportive of Keith.
Everyone’s stepped up to help, has offered help, put together fundraisers, offered, you
know, to do anything.
>> MARK BOHNE: My name’s Mark Bohne, I worked for the Palm Beach County Sherriff’s office,
and back in April 21st 1986 I was shot five times.
As a result of my shooting, we formed the Law Enforcement Assistance Foundation which
helps injured law enforcement officers, and families of officers killed in the line of
duty.
Due to the severity of his injury, we knew he was gonna be out of work for a long time,
so what we decided to do was have a special fundraising event for him.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: The benefit for Keith today was quite emotional watching everyone come out and the
police family, and watching all the kids play and the bands playing was just very touching,
to see everyone come together and support Keith.
>> MINDY WEISS: We are so grateful for all the support that we have, not just from the
bikers but the bars and the bands and everyone that their time and their efforts to help
us raise some money for Officer Keith Gorski.
>> MRS.
GORSKI: It is very nice having Keith back home.
Day by day he’s playing with the boys more, learning how to use the left arm, and outside
playing football and getting back into baseball and hopefully looking forward to him coaching
again possibly this fall.
>> KG: It’s one of my favorite things to do, is play baseball, and to coach baseball
with the boys, and I get out there and I practice with them a couple nights a week, and then
we have games a couple nights a week.
We’ll have a lot of fun for everybody.