High school hockey player bounces back from gruesome facial injury

For DJ LaMartina, what started as a high school hockey championship celebration ended with celebrity at the sharp edge of an upturned skate.

It happened around 7:30 p.m. March 3 at the Scottrade Center in downtown St. Louis, where 17-year-old LaMartina’s Francis Howell North High School hockey team had just beaten Fox High School of St. Louis, 3 to 1, to win the Mid-States Club Hockey Association’s Wickenheiser Cup.

LaMartina, who’s a junior at Francis Howell North in St. Charles, Mo., and the team’s center and sometime left wing, sped over the ice to join his teammates on their celebratory pile. His dash ended abruptly when he hit a teammate's skate, which sliced a deep gash in his face and broke a tooth.

News stories with gruesome photos and video of the injury soon started popping up on the Internet, including on the websites of USA Today (http://usatodayhss.com/2015/teen-hockey-goalie-suffers-horrendous-facial-injury-celebrating-title) and CBS Sports (http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on-hockey/25094658/watch-high-school-hockey-player-suffers-scary-injury-during-celebration).

LaMartina stood up on the ice, saw blood on his hands, skated to the bench and then was taken to the locker room. Trainers gave him first aid, and soon he was in an ambulance headed for nearby Children’s Hospital in St. Louis. A reconstructive plastic surgeon there used more than 60 stitches to close the wound. The hospital released LaMartina about 5 o’clock the next morning.

The wicked-looking injury, though, didn’t stop him from returning to the ice three days later at the St. Peters (Mo.) Rec-Plex for a national qualifier, playing right wing for Twin Bridges Elite, a club team in East Alton, Ill. LaMartina scored a goal in his team’s victory. He played again the next day, though Twin Bridges lost that one.

LaMartina said he felt almost no pain right after the injury, and he supposed that shock and adrenaline probably accounted for it. He started feeling pain after his surgery, though, and his surgeon prescribed the pain killer oxycodone, but he's sticking to ibuprophen.

His father, Dan LaMartina, said the surgeon had told them that, because DJ has very little body fat, as many athletes do, the wound opened wider than it otherwise would’ve, which made it look worse. The surgeon said the wound should heal completely in two to three weeks.

Brycon Johnson, a senior at Francis Howell and one of LaMartina’s teammates for the past few years, said he’d been on the bottom of the pile when LaMartina’s injury occurred.

“It’s tough for anybody to get hurt, especially celebrating,” Johnson said. “As a hockey player, he’s getting a lot better. He started out shy, but he’s getting more confidence. He’s a real neat kid.”

Joel Herr, LaMartina’s coach at Francis Howell North, described him as “a great player with a lot of potential. He’s always willing to learn.”

Herr said he’d “seen guys take some pretty gruesome injuries” on the ice.

“It was a freak accident,” he said.

Jamie Barada, coach of the Twin Bridges Elite team, said he’d also seen quite a few nasty injuries on the ice, including broken legs and head gashes. LaMartina’s was “definitely in the top 10,” he said.

LaMartina learned to ice skate and started playing ice hockey and inline hockey (on roller skates) when he was 5 years old, and he started playing organized ice hockey at 14.

[ Author's note: Dan and DJ LaMartina and I are cousins.]