Floyd and Sharon Ricketts, of Monroeville, are especially grateful today that their youngest child is still with them, surprisingly healthy and strong only months after a devastating traffic accident.

	Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Matthew Ricketts sits between his parents, Sharon and Floyd Ricketts, in front of the Christmas tree in their home in Monroeville. The family says the accident that almost killed Matthew -- and his recovery -- changed their lives. Click photo for larger image.

"I know things could have been so different," Sharon Ricketts said. "We could have been celebrating Christmas without Matt."

On May 1, Matt Ricketts was riding in a car on the Route 66 toll road between Greensburg and Delmont in Westmoreland County when the vehicle blew a tire, ran up an embankment and turned over.

Matt, 17, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected through the rear window. He suffered lung and head injuries that doctors feared would be fatal.

But about two months after the accident, Matt, a junior at Pittsburgh East Christian School in Plum, was working out with the school's soccer team. When the school year began, he played a starring role on the team.

Varsity soccer coach Eric Romandy said Matt was the team's most valuable player last season and probably will be this season as well.

"It's a fantastic story, a miracle for him to come back and play as well as he plays," Romandy said.

Also a member of the school's fitness team, Matt looked the picture of health earlier this month as he pumped out sit-ups and lifted weights with other team members. Only a few scars gave an indication of his injuries, including a long, thin surgical scar extending from the middle of his chest and under his right arm to his upper back.

Romandy, who is also the head fitness coach, said Matt still needs to build upper body strength after his time in the hospital, where he lost more than 30 pounds.

But he has gained back the weight he lost, and his strength level is "pretty close to where he was," Romandy said.

Tony Serrao, 17, a member of the school's soccer and fitness teams, said Matt is the same funny, joking friend he knew before the accident.

"I never thought he'd be the same again," said Serrao, who visited Matt in the hospital.

Matt's mother said he started the school year on time and has done well in his classes.

Dr. Edward M. Barksdale Jr., interim chief of pediatric surgery at Children's Hospital and the trauma surgeon who repaired Matt's damaged right lung, called Matt's recovery "remarkable."

Dr. P. David Adelson, a pediatric neurosurgeon who also cared for Matt, gave a similar assessment, saying he has had "a wonderful outcome." Matt suffered a traumatic brain injury, and the mortality rate for those injuries is 50 percent to 75 percent, Adelson said.

While the brain injury places Matt at risk for developing problems with memory or with focusing his attention, he has had "a pretty full recovery," said Adelson, the hospital's director of pediatric neurotrauma.

Quiet and serious as he spoke of the accident, Matt said he is grateful just to be with his family this Christmas.

The crash occurred on a mild spring day about 7:30 p.m. as Matt and two friends were returning from Westmoreland Mall. Matt's family said that his friends, who were in the front seat, also were not wearing seat belts and had minor injuries.

Witnesses told the family that Matt, riding in the back seat, ended up on the ground after the accident, then got up and stumbled around before collapsing on the side of the road. He was taken by helicopter to Children's Hospital.

Barksdale was just leaving the hospital to attend a First Communion party for the daughter of a close friend when his pager went off and he learned that a child was coming in with a life-threatening injury.

Matt's parents had been out to see a movie and were shopping when they called home to check their phone messages.

"Nothing could have prepared us for what we heard," Matt's mother said.

A woman had called who apparently was at the accident scene. She mentioned Matt's name and urged a return call. A girl's screams could be heard in the background.

Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Matthew Ricketts, 17, lifts weights at the Pittsburgh East Christian School, where he works out with the fitness team five days a week. Ricketts nearly died last spring after a tire blew on the car in which he was riding on Route 66 and he was ejected out the back window. His right lung was nearly cut in two and the surgeon at Children's Hospital struggled to close the wounds. He was in a coma for several weeks and doctors questioned whether he would survive. Click photo for larger image.

Another message from Children's Hospital indicated Matt had arrived there, and they rushed to the hospital.

At first, "all they would tell us was he was getting the best care possible," Sharon Ricketts said.

"It looked like he had fatal injuries," Barksdale recalled. "He had clear evidence of head trauma. We were having difficulty ventilating him -- that is, breathing for him -- and his blood pressure was pretty much not detectable."

Matt also showed signs of significant lung injury.

"We had lots of ongoing, life-threatening bleeding from the right side," Barksdale said.

Before taking Matt into surgery, Barksdale told Sharon Ricketts that her son might not survive.

After that conversation, "it was all I could do to even stand on my feet," she wrote in a journal she kept of Matt's time in the hospital.

Family members got together and prayed. Before long, about 30 relatives and friends had gathered to wait and hope.

During the surgery, Barksdale found that Matt had a laceration in his right lung and that large blood vessels there were bleeding heavily.

"We were able to get sutures in to repair them and stem the tide, if you will, but not completely," Barksdale recalled, noting that patients with similar injuries often bleed to death.

He said that after about two hours of surgery, "I went back and told the family I thought things looked very grim.

"Quite honestly, I thought he was going to be dead by the next morning."

Instead, Matt soon seemed fairly stable. But he was in a coma and wasn't waking up. After a few days, he showed signs of having a "really, really bad brain injury," Barksdale said.

Matt had suffered a closed head injury, which can result when the brain is shaken violently from the force of a traffic accident, and his brain was swelling. Doctors feared that he could continue to live but might never regain consciousness.

In her journal entry for May 5, Sharon Ricketts noted that one of the neurosurgeons "delivered discouraging news -- that Matt was not responding to outside stimuli. What does all this mean, Lord?"

A day later, she was encouraged when her son squeezed a nurse's hand on command and turned his head.

On Mother's Day, May 9, she wrote in her journal: "I am so happy that I am still the mother of four children and not mourning the loss of my youngest child."

Matt faced other health problems, including a lingering fever and problems with his kidneys. Still, he made steady progress, said his mother, who stayed at the hospital for more than two weeks after the accident.

Around mid-May, he began to show clear signs of returning to consciousness.

"He began to get more and more agitated," Barksdale recalled. "His mother kept saying, 'Something's there.' "

Doctors removed his breathing tube. Almost immediately, his mother said, he began talking.

"Matthew was able to remember names. Remember his address. Remember faces," she said.

"That was amazing, that he was able to do that after all he'd been through."

On May 21, according to his mother's journal, he was able to sit up briefly on the side of his bed. On May 25, he walked to the bathroom. On May 30, he began eating clear liquids. And on June 9, according to his family, he was released from the hospital.

The Rickettses said the experience has changed their lives.

"It really makes you appreciate your family, your friends," Floyd Ricketts said.

This Christmas season, shopping and giving gifts have been less important, his wife said.

Today, she said she would focus on the "goodness, grace and mercy of God, in the knowledge that we have a family and that they're all well."