‘Life is a very beautiful thing’: Trauma survivors share stories on recovery and resilience

By Sooji Nam

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    ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Florida (WPBF) — Many patients at Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce gathered on Trauma Survivors Day to share a glimpse of their lives.

“I did have an out-of-body experience. I felt like I had a choice to make, either move on or find a way to get back into my body,” Paul Civitella, a competitive skydiver, said.

It was supposed to be a typical day for Civitella, doing what he loved most.

However, the unimaginable happened.

“I had a bad landing, which caused me to drop out of the sky about 500 feet up in the air, doing about 30 to 40 miles an hour, belly first,” he said. “I knew I had a bad parachute over my head, I was too low to deploy my reserve. So, at that point, it’s just a matter of ‘what can I do to maximize the best chances of survival?'”

“Left femur fracture, where the bone came out of my leg. My right hip fracture, three spinal fractures, a broken nose, a small bowel injury that required surgery, internal surgery,” Civitella added.

He said his brain also bled from the impact of the landing.

“Stuck in a hospital for over a month, doing inpatient rehab for 22 days with the same walls, day in and day out, it’s painful,” he said. “It’s mentally painful.”

Like Civitella, Kenny Fadael has also been receiving treatment at Lawnwood Hospital after getting into a terrifying car accident on I-95 in March.

“My body was in so much shock and trauma, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was very nervous, panicked a lot but thank God for the firefighters that helped me to bring me to this amazing hospital,” Fadael told WPBF 25 News.

He is recovering from several fractures, including in his shoulder, and hip. Fadael said he is working to recover and knows he will bounce back.

“They were able to be by my side and honestly, if it wasn’t for them, I don’t know where I would be,” he said.

Survivors said they are grateful to have a second chance at life.

“Life is a very beautiful thing,” Civitella said.

“Since day one, that’s all I could think about was ‘how am I going to get back into skydiving?'” he added, smiling.

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