A local Marine fights for recovery one finger at a time
An insurgent's bullet ended man's service in Iraq
CAPI LYNN
Statesman Journal
July 29, 2005

KEIZER -- She cradles his lifeless wrist with one hand and with the other takes his fingers, one at a time, and bends them until he flinches.

Then she bends each one a bit more and holds it in that position for 10 seconds.

Again and again, for about an hour each day, she flexes his crippled fingers during a series of range-of-motion exercises.

This is not Erik Sphoon's idea of holding hands with his wife, but the routine is just the beginning for the Marine Corps sergeant.

A sniper's bullet ripped through his hand, wrist and forearm last month while he was on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq, and he faces a year of grueling physical therapy.

"Most of it feels like a good stretch," he says, "but some of it feels like a voodoo death grip.

"I can't just not do it. I want to be able to use my hand again someday."

The exercises are almost as difficult for Christie, his wife.

"I get squeamish because I think about the pain," she says. "I don't want to push too hard or snap anything. My worst fear is I'm going to mess up what they have fixed."

Erik has had more than a dozen surgeries to repair shattered bones, torn tendons and severed nerves. His arm is held together by a 7-inch metal plate and several pins and screws.

"I don't know why it doesn't sound like a robotic arm, because there's so much stuff in there," he says. "It should just be hydraulic."

Almost six weeks have passed since he was wounded, and he barely can wiggle his thumb and his index finger.

But the 26-year-old knows he is lucky. He could have lost his arm or bled to death.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about it," says Erik, who is home on convalescent leave.

Second tour in Iraq

He was shot about three months into his second tour of duty as an infantryman with Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

During his first tour, he was among the first troops to move into Fallujah in April 2004.

"That was just one big gunfight the whole time," says Erik, who grew up in Aumsville and graduated in 1997 from Cascade High School in Turner.

He returned to Iraq this year to find the insurgents even more determined, carrying out more sophisticated attacks. Two members of his platoon were killed in April when an improvised explosive device detonated near their convoy.

Erik had had some close calls -- like the time a roadside bomb exploded across the street from his Humvee -- before getting wounded less than two months later.

Members of his platoon were on patrol June 12 in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad. They were escorting a civil-affairs group that was surveying residents in a city that has been the site of frequent attacks that have killed U.S. troops.

They were cordoning a city block and establishing what they call "trigger lines," placing a barrier of cones to keep Iraqis at a distance and away from their vehicles.

The locals were getting too close in one area, so Erik, the platoon guide, radioed to extend the trigger line.

He moved the cones himself and, as he was placing the last one, he heard the shot coming from a bolt-action rifle.

"It felt like my arm was on fire," he says, "and I felt this giant hole."

A swift reaction

Erik dropped his rifle, grabbed his arm to try to stop the bleeding and ran for his Humvee about 20 yards away. His driver, Lance Cpl. Josh Barfield, was waiting with bandages.

The bullet entered through the back of his hand, shattered his wrist and exited under his forearm. His ulnar artery was severed, and a chunk of his arm was blown away. He was losing a lot of blood.

He remembers that later, when doctors removed his desert camies, they were soaked red.

"The more excited I got, the more blood rushed out of the wound," he says.

Barfield's quick reaction and calming influence were crucial to saving his arm, perhaps even his life.

"He was very cool," Erik says. "He knew what he had to do and just did it. He told me, 'You're going to be all right; it's not that bad.' He was lying to me, but he was calming me down.

"I think -- I know -- he pretty much saved my life."

A medevac vehicle arrived within minutes and transported Erik to a field hospital.

He was groggy from a morphine injection but remembers his teary-eyed platoon sergeant coming to visit him.

"On the radio, he thought I had been shot in the head," Erik says, "not the hand."

While Erik was at the field hospital, nurses were able to use Vaseline to remove his titanium wedding band from his swollen hand. It doesn't fit the ring finger on his right hand, so for now, Christie is wearing it on her thumb.

Fearing the worst

Once Erik was stabilized, a medevac crew flew him to Germany, where he underwent surgery, and then to the Navy hospital at Camp Pendleton, the headquarters for the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.

Much of the first few days was a blur.

He was sure he was going to lose his arm and join hundreds of troops who have undergone amputations in the more than two years since the war began in Iraq.

"I thought I was off to Bethesda, where amputees go," Erik says, referring to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Instead, Camp Pendleton was his destination. He arrived June 19, one week after being hit by that sniper's bullet.

Family at his bedside

His wife and daughter, his parents, and his younger brother and his wife were there to greet him. The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund reimbursed much of their travel expenses, allowing them to concentrate on Erik's recovery.

"It's definitely a life-saver for the injured," Erik says, urging people in the Salem-Keizer area to donate a few bucks to the nonprofit organization. "I don't care how tough you think you are; you can't do it alone.

"I'm definitely going to donate to them when we have more money. I'm not the last one who's going to get injured over in Iraq."

Erik underwent surgeries almost every other day while doctors worked to repair the damaged bones, tendons and nerves. Metal plating, pins and screws were inserted to help the wrist heal. Doctors also grafted skin from his upper thigh to replace the tissue that was blown away.

He developed an infection while in Iraq and still needs a full drip bag of antibiotics every six hours. A pick line was surgically inserted into a vein under his right biceps so he doesn't have to be poked for an IV every time.

"If I don't fight it off," Erik says of the infection, "I could potentially still lose my arm."

His father, Tim, the chief of the Aumsville Rural Fire District, helps out with the IV when Christie is at work.

Vital surgery is near

Erik will undergo perhaps his most important surgery next month at the Navy hospital at Camp Pendleton. Doctors will take a piece of nerve from his leg and insert it in his arm where the ulnar nerve was severed.

His physical therapist says it might take a year before he can use his hand to pick something up. He might never be able to use his ring finger and pinky.

"As long as I can still play cards," he says, demonstrating the motion of sliding playing cards across the table with his thumb and index and middle fingers.

Texas Hold 'em is his game. He and his buddies spent a lot of their free time in Iraq playing the popular poker game.

"The guys wouldn't want to play with me cause I took all their money," Erik says.

There are other, more important, things he wants to be able to do, such as being able to tie his shoes and tickle his 18-month-old daughter, Alexis, who has his bright blue eyes.

Erik keeps his arm in a sling and rests it on a pillow most of the time. Underneath the sling is a mesh "sock" that covers much of his arm from wrist to elbow, "so I don't have to look at it, so people don't have to see it."

A large, jagged scar juts out from under the mesh sock. A small patch of dressing on the inside of his forearm marks the spot where the skin graft was done. He wears an Isotoner glove, which keeps his joints warm and his fingers from swelling too much.

A few days ago, for the first time, he took a long look at the wound.

Changing plans

The scar reminds him that a career with the Marines no longer is in his future. At best, he might regain 80 percent use of his arm, which isn't good enough for an infantryman.

"Sitting behind a desk, in front of a computer, doing paperwork, that's not me," Erik says. "That's not why I joined the Marine Corps."

In another year or so, after completing eight years of service, he expects to be medically discharged.

He and his best friend, Devin Hlavinka, plan to start a local motorcycle custom fabrication shop. Erik wants to go to college when he gets out of the Marines and take courses to learn how to start and run a small business.

His job now is to be faithful to physical therapy, which means spending at least an hour a day with his wife holding his hand and taking him through the range-of-motion exercises.

As his wife presses down on one of his fingers, he closes his eyes and winces. Sometimes he holds his breath and then sighs with relief as she lets up.

"I just don't want to get her on a bad day," he says with a smile.

clynn@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6710

Summary

Marine Corps Sgt. Erik Sphoon of Keizer was wounded June 12 by a sniper's bullet while on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. The 26-year-old is home on convalescent leave after undergoing more than a dozen surgeries on his severely injured left hand, wrist and arm. He grew up in Aumsville and graduated in 1997 from Cascade High School in Turner.

Semper Fi Fund

A group of Marine Corps spouses started the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund in April 2004. It is a nonprofit organization that provides financial grants and other assistance to injured Marines, sailors and their families. The fund helps pay for travel and lodging, for example, so families can be at the bedside of their loved ones. The fund has provided more than $1.7 million to more than 1,000 families.
To support the fund, you can make a credit-card donation at www.semperfifund.org or send a check to Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, 825 College Blvd., Suite 102, PMB 609, Oceanside, CA 92057. All donations are tax-deductible. You will receive a tax receipt in the mail once your donation is processed.

Ellie