(Continued from page 22)

• Sitting next to his older brother, Trent Boner, a sophomore on the Yellow Jackets football team, put things into perspective.
• "Nobody thought he would recover like he has," Trent said. "It was definitely a miracle that he did."
• An AVM is an abnormal connection between arteries and veins, bypassing the capillary system. The vascular anomaly is known because of its occurrence in the central nervous system, but it can appear in any location. Although many AVMs are asymptomatic, they can cause intense pain or bleeding or lead to other serious medical problems.
• AVMs are usually congenital and the genetic transmission patterns, if any, are unknown. AVM is not generally thought to be an inherited disorder. About 1 percent of the population is diagnosed with it and up to 88 percent of those diagnoses are through autopsy.
• "I had never heard it," said Jeff Boner, Scott's father.
• During the incident, Scott doesn't remember much, but he said he got a headache and apparently was disoriented. BHSU strength and conditioning coach Darrell Dryden noticed his odd behavior and eventually took him to the Spearfish Regional Hospital emergency room, where he was rushed to Rapid City.
• "I kind of remember getting in the truck here and that was about it for me for about four or five days," Scott said.
• The original plan was to fly him to Denver, but doctors decided they didn't have enough time to get him there. Trent was home on the family ranch north of Douglas and he, his father and mother, Tracy, and younger brother, Garrett, drove to Rapid City praying they would get there in time.
• "It's every parent's worst nightmare, that kind of call," his father said. "It was a long drive."
• As it turned out, several things that could have gone wrong didn't. One early break came when Jeff Boner called his cousin, Dr. Joy Falkenburg of Custer, who rushed to Rapid City to help despite being on the job for about 18 straight hours.
• There had been a bad automobile accident earlier that day in the Black Hills and Rapid City Regional's neurosurgeon was busy in surgery. Dr. Falkenburg was able to locate another neurosurgeon -- Dr. Tim Watt, who was not affiliated with the hospital -- and he was able to perform the surgery.
• "For that to happen, that was pretty dynamic," Jeff Boner said. "They didn't know if he would make it and if he did, he could have had some severe brain damage. At that point you just hope that he makes it through surgery and then you deal with anything else."
• Trent said the first thing he told himself was that he would be happy if he could

(Continued on page 24)