Siemon was up to bat like any other game, watching the pitcher intently. The pitcher winds up to make the throw, then finally lets go of the ball. In a split second, Siemon is on the ground. No one around knew what had just happened. The game paused as he sat there holding his face in disbelief.
It was Saturday, May 10, at the Latrobe Derry Area Teener League field. Siemon was on the St. Anthony Saints playing against VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). It was in the middle of the first inning when he went up to bat. He wasn’t thinking about anything else except hitting the ball.
“I wasn’t thinking about anything. I just let my mind go blank,” said Siemon. Right after he swung, he dropped to the ground. He said, “I couldn’t see anything because there was blood everywhere, but I didn’t feel anything, so I assumed I was alright.”
After trying to clean him up, his coach called the ambulance because Max wasn’t looking good. He sat in the dugout waiting for the ambulance to show up. “When I was sitting in the dug out is when my face started to hurt pretty bad, and it wouldn’t stop bleeding,” said Siemon. The ambulance took him to IHS Latrobe Hospital.
Siemon finally got picked up by the ambulance to head to the hospital. On the way there, he said that he “was worried about getting surgery.” That was his main concern.
He had a CT scan, finding out he had three facial fractures. That is a major discovery, so they had to transfer him to the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh as a level one serious trauma. When he arrived at the hospital, they immediately cleaned the blood off him. “I felt a lot better after the doctor cleaned the blood off my face. It was really sticky,” he said.
He was told they would most likely have to wait to be seen by the doctor, being in the trauma unit by the paramedics in the ambulance, but when they got there, they took him into a room and started working on him immediately. “The ambulance people said I would have to wait, but I didn’t, and I was immediately being looked at by some doctors.”
He was very anxious about the outcome of his injuries. He said, “I was pretty scared because I didn’t know if I was going to be able to play again or how long I would have to wait to start playing again.” When he finally found out what had happened to him, he was shocked to find out what he had broken.
Siemon said, “My nose was hurting really bad, so I knew I had broken my nose, but I was surprised when they told me I had also broken my eye socket.” He was also told that doing something as small as blowing his nose could worsen his eye. “I didn’t think blowing my nose would do anything to my eye; I thought it would just move the bones in my nose, so that was pretty scary,” said Siemon.
He saw the pediatric plastic surgeon a week after being in the hospital. They set an appointment for his surgery to move the bone in his nose back in place because he was having trouble breathing. Siemon wasn’t anxious about the surgery. He said, “After I heard what they were just going to do, they were just going to knock a bone back into place. I was like, that’s not going to be long, and I was told the surgery wouldn’t be long at all, too.” The surgery was three days after the meeting. It went well and did not take long at all.
He was upset to hear he couldn’t play baseball until he recovered, saying, “I was sad, honestly, it took away most of my travel and teener league season, and I couldn’t do anything, so I had to regain all my skills back.”
He had a hard recovery, not being able to do anything to ensure his eye wouldn’t droop or worsen. He was especially upset not being able to play with his team. “All I could do was just sit in the dugout and watch them play and do nothing. I just wanted to be back on the field with them,” he said.
He did not have an exciting recovery, stating he faced a lot of boredom. Siemon said, “ I was bored all the time because I knew I should’ve been playing baseball.” This recovery also affected him mentally. He said, “I was sad because I wasn’t as good or strong or as fast as I used to be.”
He couldn’t wait to get back on the field with his team. “I was pretty anxious to start playing again.”
When he was finally allowed back to play, he wasn’t his best. “I was definitely a little rusty starting back up.” His teammates and coaches thought he would be scared to step back into it. “Everybody thought I was going to be scared to get back in the box, but I really wasn’t, because I just don’t think in the box. So, yeah, it was kind of challenging,” said Siemon.
He had a great recovery, and even though getting back was tough, he pushed through and is now back to playing just like before.
