3 years after explosion in class, student with brain injuries ‘shocked I’m still alive’

Jan. 14--Dustin Reinhardt lost one of his eyes, much of his face, part of his brain and most of his independence when a tractor tire exploded in his high school automotive repair class.

The near fatal accident on Sept. 4, 2013, at Seminole Ridge High in the Acreage caused Reinhardt, now 20, to undergo nine surgeries, including two brain surgeries and several to reconstruct his face. He spent a month in a medically induced coma, and for the past three years has lived in group homes for people with brain injuries.

While his voice sounds like that of a normal young man, he's lost important brain functions, including reason and judgment, his father, Scott Reinhardt said.

"Sometimes I'll look at Dustin and see the most angelic positive inspirational human being anyone could ever know," Reinhardt said. "Other times I look at him and I see a young man that has had his life destroyed."

The family will likely achieve a major victory Wednesday, when the Palm Beach County School Board is expected to agree to a settlement. The school district would pay the family $300,000 right now and up to $4.7 million total if the Legislature approves.

Although the school district has a catastrophic insurance fund that has paid most of the medical bills so far, family members say Reinhardt will need care for the rest of his life, and his job prospects are limited due to his brain injuries.

Scott Reinhardt and his wife, Jo Ann Reinhardt, who is Dustin's stepmother, are his full guardians. Dustin's mother died in 2008. The court has removed all of Dustin's privileges except to seek employment and vote, the father said.

But Dustin Reinhardt doesn't complain about the life he must now lead.

"I've heard you don't get close to God until you get close to death," Dustin said in an interview from Sarasota, where he stays at the NeuroInternational assisted living facility. "I've had a positive attitude since this happened. I rarely get angry. I'm just shocked I'm still alive."

Part of his brain was replaced with putty, his father said. In addition to a loss of judgment and reasoning, Dustin has a poor short-term memory. He will often tell a detailed story and then repeat it 15 minutes later, the father said.

Dustin Reinhardt has few memories about what happened that day at Seminole Ridge.

"All I remember was a loud boom, someone yelling 'Holy (expletive), and the next thing I remember was waking up in the hospital," he said.

Reinhardt was helping another student repair a tire at the time of the accident. Students often brought auto parts from home to work on in the school's automotive academy, Scott Reinhardt said.

The classmate brought in a split rim wheel, which is used on semi trucks and other large vehicles. These wheels should only be inflated when they are secured in a cage or other restraining device, according to guidelines from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Ray Craig, who was Reinhardt's auto instructor, told police he saw Dustin leaning over a tire that was on the truck rim, and he attempted to fill it with air from a hose.

The tire was lying almost flat on the ground and Craig "instructed Dustin to stand the tire upright and not stand directly in front of the rim area while filling the tire with air," according to the police report.

Craig told police as he was walking away from Reinhardt, "he heard a loud boom explosion type sound" and saw that Reinhardt had severe head injuries.

Dustin Reinhardt was airlifted to St. Mary's Hospital Trauma Center in West Palm Beach, where doctors were unsure if he would survive. He spent a month in a medically induced coma.

"The doctors said they're going to do the best they can, but we need to be prepared that it would not be good news," Jo Ann Reinhardt said. "His whole face was crushed. His right frontal lobe was gone. They had put a metal tube in his head to relieve the pressure."

Dr. David Petruska, a St. Mary's neurosurgeon who operated on Dustin, said, "When you see something like that, your immediate thought is the life expectancy is very low. But we did what we had to. He's a remarkable young man with a lot of life in him."

The accident was one of two during the 2013-14 school year at Seminole Ridge. In April 2014, a student suffered broken bones and a punctured lung after being pinned to a work bench by a car another student was driving.

The Palm Beach County School District has taken steps to improve safety at automotive and technical programs, district spokeswoman Julie Houston Trieste said. Students and staff must complete extensive training. The Seminole Ridge auto program now has two instructors, instead of one, to supervise students.

And the district created an Automotive Academy Advisory Board with community and industry members to review the district's practices.

The Seminole Ridge program has been recently been accredited through the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation, "which certifies that the program provides the highest standards for its students and instructors," Trieste said.

Craig, Seminole Ridge's instructor in 2013, was fired in June 2015, Triest said. He couldn't be reached for comment.

After Dustin Reinhardt returned home from the hospital in December 2013, the family adjusted to what they describe as a "new normal."

Dustin has earned a high school diploma through a special program at a group home in Wauchula. He is reading, although not at the same level as before the accident, his father said.

During a recent visit home at Christmas, he solved a 35-piece jigsaw puzzle, his father said. Although he could solve 1,500-piece puzzles before the accident, he couldn't figure them out at all in the first couple of years afterward, the father said.

The hope now is for Dustin to get vocational training where he can learn tasks through repetition and correction of errors, the father said.

"I want to work at an auto shop. That's what I've always loved doing it, and it's hands on," Dustin said. "I also hope to get married and have kids some day."

stravis@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6637 or 954-425-1421

___

(c)2017 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at www.sun-sentinel.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.