By Nick Buglione
After suffering a serious spinal cord injury on the job last May, the 37-year-old Suffolk County police officer spent 22 days fighting for his life at the East Meadow-based hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness.
"Because they kept me very heavily medicated, I don't have a lot of recollection about being here. My wife has told me there were two or three times when it was very touch and go for me," said Brumber, now paralyzed from the waist down. "I was told how the staff here all stood up and brought me back to life like three times."
In an emotional reunion last week, Brumber and other representatives from the Suffolk County Police Department returned to the NUMC to personally thank the nurses and doctors who never gave up despite his grim prognosis.
"It's a tribute to this hospital that he's in as good a condition as he is, because it didn't look like he was going to make it," Suffolk County Police Commissioner John Gallagher said. "He's alive today. He's wheelchair-bound, but he's able to function from the waist up."
An officer with the department's Marine Bureau, Brumber was patrolling a Fire Island beach on May 27, when the right front tire of his ATV hit an unknown object and ejected him from the vehicle.
"I remember the accident like it just happened," recalled Brumber, who lives in Hicksville. "I was ejected to the left and came down on my spinal column."
Suffering from paralysis and brain swelling, the officer was airlifted to the NUMC, one of the few area hospitals capable of treating an injury of that magnitude.
"He had a lot of difficulty breathing and they put him on a respirator right away," said Donna Johnson, head nurse of the surgical and medical intensive care units.
Preventing any further damage to the spine was the first priority. Brumber underwent a roughly five-hour emergency medical procedure to insert a rod in his neck, Johnson said.
Though he survived the surgery and his first night, Brumber's life remained in jeopardy for much of the three weeks he was hospitalized at the NUMC.
"You have to watch out for other medical problems. The spine is the central nervous system that controls everything else," Johnson said. "So you can have a lot of organ problems, lung problems. There are many things. Right away he had lung problems because of his injury."
Brumber suffered from a condition called ARDS, a disorder that sets in after paralysis in which the lungs get stiff, making breathing difficult.
"He was put in a special bed in which he was flipped from his back to his belly, which is a new way of treating that type of disease," Johnson said. "And he did very well."
While Brumber fought for his life, his wife Lynda, 38, and children Christopher, 12, Stephen, 9, and Michael, 6, stayed faithfully at his side.
Though the hospital staff remained focused on his treatment, they went out of their way to make sure Brumber's family got the support they too desperately needed.
"They were wonderful," Lynda said. "Everyone on staff was wonderful; they made us feel so comfortable. Everybody seemed to care. Whatever they were doing, they would stop and ask how Scott was doing."
It's only been five months since Brumber's accident, yet fruits of the treatment he received at the NUMC are clearly visible.
"I have full sensation in my legs, but I can't move anything," said Brumber, whose spinal column is still intact. "The nerve responses are still there, and it's just a matter of building my muscles back up."
Undergoing about eight to 10 hours of therapy a day, he hopes to one day walk again.
"I'm not going to give up until I do," said Brumber, who has spent nine years working as a police officer and has no intentions of quitting now. "I want to go back to work. I'd rather be walking back to work, instead of in a wheelchair."
Life, however, isn't exactly easy for him. Trivial tasks such as taking a shower or putting on his pants have become laborious chores. Brumber's diaphragm is now only 70 percent functional as a result of his paralysis, causing shortness of breath.
Still, he's alive and home again. "It's unbelievable," Brumber said. "I don't care what happens in the future. I'm home with my family and that's the important thing."
