April 5, 2005

Back to work for Willow Glen judge

By Patti Wolf
Staff Writer

Five months ago Randy Rice lay in a coma after falling from a ladder while trimming a tree.

Four months ago Rice, paralyzed on his right side, was painstakingly re-learning to walk and use his hand.

The week of April 4, Rice returns to work, presiding over criminal cases as a judge with the Santa Clara County Superior Court. He has recovered fully with no paralysis and no brain damage, but with an appreciation of the kindness of strangers, the prayers of friends and family and a new insight into the defendants who will come before him in court.

His recovery is nothing short of miraculous, said Rice, who is also an Episcopal priest. “I always believed I would get well.”

His graying hair is close-cropped and there’s a scar where doctors recently reattached the portion of his skull they removed the night of the accident. He’s hung up the hockey-style helmet he wore to protect his head, but he’s still laying off the skiing, boogie boarding and biking until he gets the OK from his doctors.

Superior Court Judge Randy Rice stands next to the pepper tree he was trimming when he fell last October.

“It’s a very strange thing to have a brain injury and then recover from it,” he said.

About 1.4 million people in the United States suffer a traumatic brain injury every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 50,000 of those people die, 235,000 are hospitalized and 1.1 million are treated at an emergency room and released.

Falls are the leading cause of such injuries, according to the CDC.

Remembering
Rice, 57, a former president of the Santa Clara County Bar Association and the county’s first openly gay Superior Court judge, remembers much about the accident. He was trimming a pepper tree with a saw the day before Halloween, standing 10 feet up on a 12-foot ladder. He started to cut a branch when he fell and hit his head on the curb. The branches of a pepper tree break easily, he learned, and authorities speculated a branch brushed him and caused him to topple.

He remained conscious. He told neighbors his name. “And I said ‘let me go to bed,’ ” Rice said. “If they had, I would have died.”

Rice’s neighbors, Jim and Margaret Collar, saw him fall. Jim ran to Rice’s side and Margaret called 911. Rice, who had moved into the Willow Glen home in May and was out of the country much of the time, had never met his neighbors from across the street.

“Not only did he save my life, but while I was in the hospital, Jim cut up all the branches from that tree,” Rice said.

He was taken to Valley Medical Center where surgeons operated for seven and a half hours to remove a blood blot clot from his brain. To get to the clot, they removed a softball-size chunk of his skull. They left his skull open to reduce the pressure on his swollen brain and the chunk they had removed was frozen, ready to be re-attached later.

Rice’s longtime companion, Klaus Merrell, was in Costa Rica, at the home they share in Quepos, a small town three hours from the capital. Merrell arrived at the hospital on Nov. 1.

Happy Anniversary
“I looked down at him, swollen and in a coma and said, ‘Happy anniversary.’ ” It was Merrell and Rice’s 31st anniversary. Rice woke from his coma Nov. 15, paralyzed on his right side. He was transferred to Kaiser Redwood City, then to Kaiser’s rehabilitation center in Vallejo. He has nothing but praise for his medical care.

“Kaiser was so supportive. They said you can do this and I believed I could.”

Merrell and Rice’s parents, Jim and Bette, visited him every day. He’s received dozens of phone calls and sacks full of get-well cards. He has deep roots in San Jose; his ancestors settled here in 1777. His colleagues at the courthouse told him they wanted him back, but to take his time getting well.

His goal was to get home for Christmas, and he came home in mid December. Nearly three weeks ago, doctors re-attached the chunk of his skull they removed and froze the night of the accident.

Rice said he knew he was getting better when his boys, Pasha, 16, and Nicholas, 20, started misbehaving.

Playing bridge
He’s an expert bridge player and is back playing. While not at the caliber he was before, he’s noticed an improvement every time he plays. He’s appreciative that his bridge partner, Mary Harvel, has been as tolerant as she’s been supportive.

Since the accident, Rice is getting his affairs in order. He’s made an advance directive that spells out what measures should or should not be taken to save his life. And he’s designated who can make medical decisions for him in the event of a life-threatening emergency.

“When you’re healthy, you don’t think about these [things],” he said.

His return to the courthouse won’t be full-time, yet. He’ll be on the bench three days a week. Still, “it’s wonderful news,” he announced. He’ll expand his schedule as he and his doctors see fit.

As he returns to the courthouse, it’s with a new awareness of how a person’s medical condition can affect behavior.
“My injury will make a difference in the kind of judge I am,” he said. He will more closely peruse the medical report that comes with each case.

“Many people I see have some sort of brain injury,” said Rice, who handles probation violation cases. “My injury will make me much more sensitive to their needs.”

It will also make him more sensitive to victims who have suffered grievous injuries at the hands of a defendant, he said.

Rice’s only sibling, his younger brother Michael, died 25 years ago following a brain injury. The younger Rice was crossing a Willow Glen street when he was hit by a drunk driver. He was also in a coma but when he awoke, he had suffered severe brain damage and had epilepsy. He died a few years after the accident following a seizure.

These days Rice marvels at his recovery, and looks forward to returning to his active life, hitting the waves in Costa Rica, gliding down the slopes in Tahoe, and riding the streets in San Jose. High on his list is retaining his driver’s license, revoked by law when he lost consciousness. The paperwork is in, but the governmental wheels grind slowly, a bit too slowly for someone who has come so far so fast.