Charleston MUSC pull together to get man badly hurt at bachelor party home for care

Two young men with water behind them. The man on the left has blond hair and a beard. he's wearing sunglasses and a blue shirt. The one on the right is wearing a baseball cap that says Welcome to Happy Valley. He has dark eyebrows and is wearing a white t-shirt.

Jack Rogers, left, and Jake Dugal have been friends since they met at Guilford College in North Carolina, where both played lacrosse. Photos provided

Jake Dugal was in bed for the night in Charleston, South Carolina, when an urgent text from his best friend’s parents came in. “Jake, you need to call,” it said.

During that call, they told him their son, Jack Rogers, had been in a life-threatening golf cart accident during a bachelor party in the Dominican Republic. “I was told that he had a major brain bleed,” Dugal said of the friend he’d known since they were freshmen and lacrosse teammates at Guilford College.

Dugal, now a physician assistant in neurosurgery at MUSC Health, turned to his teammates at the hospital for help. One, a neurosurgery resident who’s from the Dominican Republic, helped him communicate with the care team there.

Then, Dugal got a look at Rogers’ brain scan. “He had a massive epidural hematoma, gigantic, with a lot of midline shift. It was a devastating injury,” he said. An epidural hematoma means bleeding in the space between the membrane surrounding the brain and the skull. “I was crying, because my best friend might not even survive.”

A young man with blond hair and a beard is lying in a hospital bed He is wearing a gown and has his left hand on the back of a small black and white dog. On the left side is another man. He's wearing blue hospital scrubs and has his hands behind his head. He has a big smile.

Rogers' family wanted him brought from a hospital in the Dominican Republic to MUSC Health in Charleston.

Neurosurgeon Alejandro Spiotta, M.D., was worried too. “When I saw Jack’s CAT scan, it was extremely concerning. Terrifying. He may already be dead was my first thought, honestly,” he said.

He explained Rogers’ head injury. “There's a series of arteries that lie right inside the skull. So when the bone fractures, it cuts the artery. And that artery starts bleeding inside the bone. So the brain gets pushed down by the pressure. His was massive. His brain was shoved over approximately two inches.”

Rogers’ family wanted him brought to MUSC Health in Charleston, South Carolina. But first, doctors in the Dominican Republic would need to operate. And people across Charleston and beyond would come together to raise funds to cover the costs, spreading the news on social media.

A photo of a young blondman wearing a suit and a young blondwoman wearing a sage green sleeveless outlet. There are outside at night. There are cafe lights behind them. The words Bring Jack hom and aid in his recovery are above the photo. The words donate, fundraise, giving funds and GoFundMe are above that.

“It was all $100, $200 donations. It was millennials getting together. And they raised $100,000 in 72 hours,” said Dr. Alejandro Spiotta of the GoFundMe for Rogers.

Rogers is well-liked, and it showed. One friend wrote on a GoFundMe request: “Jack is the most generous, selfless, funny and unique friend anyone could ask for. He is always lighting up every room with his smile and making people laugh with his jokes and stories. Now, Jack and his family need our support more than ever.”

Surgery in the Dominican Republic

That support came as doctors in the Dominican Republic took care of Rogers. “The first surgery he had was a decompressive hemicraniectomy, which is bone flap removal, along with removing and stopping the bleeding that was putting pressure on the brain,” Spiotta said.

Four people in a hospital room. A young man wit a shaved head is lying the bed holding a broom. A young man in a red jersey is leaning in next to him with his thumb raised. A woman with light hair and eye glasses is leaning in with her arm on the bed. A man wearing a red jersey stands on the right giving a thumbs up.

Rogers, with his head shaved for surgery and his hands on a broom hoping for the Carolina Hurricanes to sweep the Stanley Cup. Dugal and Rogers' parents, Pam and Jim, are with him.

That bone flap was part of Rogers’ skull. Dugal said its removal allowed doctors to take care of the brain bleed. “But there was so much brain swelling that they couldn't put the skull back on. So they put part of his skull in his abdomen and closed it up and then induced him into a coma for 72 hours.”

What may sound like an unusual place to store the bone – the abdomen – is more common in other countries than here. “So wherever they go, you can't lose it,” Spiotta said. “It’s protected.”

He credited the Dominican Republic team with saving Rogers’ life. “The fact that he survived is just a miracle. They did great surgery.”

Coming home

That surgery made it possible for Rogers to be stabilized enough to fly home with a medical team at his side. So did an outpouring of support on social media and GoFundMe. “It was all $100, $200 donations. It was millennials getting together. And they raised $100,000 in 72 hours,” Spiotta said.

“A lot of people nationwide were rooting for him,” Dugal said. That included social media personality and former “Dancing With the Stars” contestant Alix Earle, who donated $2,000.

The donations, which reached more than $114,000, covered the cost of Rogers’ care and transportation. Spiotta said it was a relief to see in person how well he was doing. “Initially, I thought he might not make it. I thought he may not walk or be independent.”

Spiotta and his team waited for Rogers’ brain swelling to relax a little more, then put the bone back on in a procedure called a cranioplasty. That was on a Friday. The next Monday, Rogers was discharged from the hospital.

Three men stand together. The one on the left has gray hair and is wearing a white shirt and blue checked coat. The one in the middle has short blond hair and is wearing a gray shirt. The man on the right is wearing blue scrubs and a lanyard with a tag o nit.

Neurosurgeon Alejandro Spiotta with Rogers and Dugal.

And in a full circle moment, he temporarily moved in with his old roommate, Jake Dugal, who wanted to keep an eye on him. “He's been crushing it. He makes dinners for my fiancee and me. He’s neurologically intact, with no deficits,” Dugal said.

Rogers recently went to the wedding that the bachelor party was for. He’ll be Dugal’s best man in October.

And he’s reflecting on everything that happened, including the accident. “We were heading back to the villa. My understanding is the golf cart was close to flipping. We were driving it a little erratically. And when the golf cart almost flipped, I jumped out. And then that's when I hit my head,” Rogers said.

“I remember my friends coming to my aid immediately after initially falling. And that's the last thing I remember.”

Rogers is grateful for the events that followed. “I'm just really thankful for everything I've been able to receive. It's helped me a lot to get to where I am now. From what I am told, that's pretty much a miracle for how I've been able to recover. I'm getting like a second chance.”