Thursday, August 2, 2001
UH’s Podlewski Vernon Podlewski thought he was going to Las Vegas to blow off some steam.
makes a heroic save
The Warriors' libero saved a good
friend's life during a trip to Las VegasBy Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.comAfter suffering through a grueling volleyball season and final exams, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation first team libero was looking forward to hanging out with his friends and cruising the Vegas Strip.
Never did he think that the trip would almost cost the life of his good friend Malu Brayce. A life that Podlewski ended up saving after a bungee jump went terribly wrong.
"It was the first trip for him," Podlewski said. "It was the best trip, since I was just done with finals and I didn't have to think about volleyball for another month.
"We wanted to do everything -- see a show, ride all the rides and go to all the places."
On the third day of their week-long trip, Podlewski, Brayce and Malu's brother, Gavin, bungee-jumped face forward off a 171-foot crane at AJ Hackett, near the Circus Circus Hotel.
It was an incredible rush for all three, especially Brayce, who wanted to do it again.
"We talked about it all night long," Podlewski said. "We were calling people on Maui (saying) 'Brah, we just bungeed.'
Said Brayce: "I live on the edge. I surf big waves. I like the rush, the intensity of it. I talked them all into it. It was just so much fun, I had to do it again."
So on Tuesday, a day before they were scheduled to leave, Podlewski and Brayce went back to the bungee jump. Podlewski hadn't planned on jumping, but Brayce goaded him into it."I was thinking I'm not going to enjoy the jump," Podlewski said. "I'm not scared. I'm just not going to enjoy the jump. But, I jumped first and I got all revved up."
Two girls followed Podlewski, and then a third person was set to jump but changed his mind at the last second.
Brayce strapped in, counted down and fell backward off the platform in a sitting position, screaming as he descended.
As he rose to the peak of the bounce, Brayce straightened out in the air and his head slipped neatly through a loop formed by a loosened cord behind him.
He could hear the voices of Podlweski and the jump operators above him as he struggled to loosen the cord from his neck.
"I was kind of fading off and then I got that burst of adrenaline and started to try to climb up the rope," Brayce said. "I was wheezing for air. My palms were all sweaty. And I tried to shake loose, and then I completely panicked because there I am being (hanged).
"I was trying to hold myself up as long as I could ... and then it completely locked me up and I remember that it felt like my head was going to pop. It was pretty intense and that's all that I remember."
As he faded from consciousness, Brayce dangled in mid-air as the bungee-jump operators scrambled to reach him. The group was short-staffed, missing the person who normally stays on the ground to guide jumpers in.
There was nothing anyone could do from the platform as they anxiously waited for the jump operator to rappel down and reel Brayce back up.
The operator clipped him to her harness and managed to wrestle the cord off his neck as they were pulled back up to the plank.
As Podlewski helped his friend onto the platform, he felt a pulse and immediately checked to see if his friend was still breathing.
"I'm looking at his face and it's just blue," Podlewski said. "His veins are popping out and his mouth is bleeding and dry from gagging.
"In my head, I'm thinking a minute and a half without breathing, he's going to be brain dead so I just dove right in. I squeezed his nose, open his mouth and gave him two breaths. That was enough to get him to fight back. He's making sounds like he's trying to breathe and then his eyes open up and he's looking around trying to focus in."
The two breaths of life revived Brayce, but no one could tell how the loss of air affected him.
As he opened his eyes, everything was blurry, but he could hear Podlewski screaming words of encouragement at him and reminding him of the other dangerous experiences he'd been through.
Confident that his friend was awake, Podlewski hugged him and collapsed on the platform in relief.
"After he gets up there and I give him mouth-to-mouth, I'm sitting there and I was like 'I can't believe this just happened.'
"(Then) the paramedics arrive (and) he's joking with them saying, 'Bungee!'. I'm just shaking my head and I can't believe it."
The paramedics took Brayce to the hospital and put him through several tests to make sure there hadn't been any serious brain damage.
Two hours later, he walked out of the hospital and into Podlewski's arms with just a fat lip, a stiff neck and burn marks from the cord.
"We're brothers for life," Brayce said. "I've had a lot of really good friends ... I've never had a friend do what he did for me."
IT HAS BEEN ALMOST three months since he saved his friend's life, but Podlewski still gets emotional when he talks about what almost happened. And though both say they would bungee-jump again, the near-death experience has forced both of them to re-examine their lives and recognize their mortality.
"I've really calmed down now," Podlewski said. "I'm not as active to look for the next rush. I will do those kind of things, but its not a thing you have to do."
For Brayce, the experience has been the kick in the pants that he needed to get his life together. Though he knew that he would eventually go to school, he hadn't taken any action toward it.
Brayce will move to California tomorrow and enroll at Santa Barbara City College for the fall.
"It makes me respect life so much more," Brayce said. "There's so many things you have to acknowledge. I love life, I always did. It made me take a step back and view everything in a different perspective."
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