John Koenig

What started out as headaches and flu symptoms turned into a near-death experience for one UW-Eau Claire student.

Junior Adam Griggel spent months in the hospital and eventually ended up having to have his leg amputated as a result of meningitis, which he was diagnosed with his freshman year.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, meningitis is an infection of the fluid of a person’s spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain. The disease can be either viral or, the more serious of the two, bacterial.

Griggel was a freshman living in Sutherland Hall when he was diagnosed with meningitis. He had just returned from spending Halloween weekend in Madison when he became very sick.

“I started getting really sick down there, and when I got back to the dorms, I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “That’s when my friends brought me to the hospital.”

Chippewa Valley Technical College student Ben Seumie, Griggel’s roommate at the time, drove him to Sacred Heart Hospital, where he was diagnosed with type-B bacterial or spinal meningitis.

“If it wasn’t for (my friends), I guarantee I wouldn’t be here because I wouldn’t have made it to the hospital in time,” Griggel said.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis, three of which are common in the United States. The vaccine only protects against two of those three.

The diagnosis surprised Griggel’s mother, Angie Griggel, who thought her son was protected against the disease after receiving the vaccination.

“We had no idea there were types you could still get,” she said.

Surviving the night
Griggel’s case was so severe that the doctors told him they didn’t expect him to make it through the night, he said.

“When I came into the hospital, they told me I had 45 minutes to live,” Griggel said. “They told me to call my parents and tell them that I love them, pretty much that I was going to die.”

Griggel said he blacked out soon after calling his family.

When his family arrived later that night, his mother said he was conscious, but nothing was registering.

“We really thought he was going to die,” she said.

Griggel said he remembers waking up four days later.

“That’s when I knew I would make it through the disease,” he said.

Although Griggel recovered from the disease, he still had to go through 14 surgeries, including having his leg amputated six inches below the knee. After the surgeries, he went through four months of rehab before getting his prosthetic leg.

Griggel returned to Eau Claire as a freshman in the fall of 2003, less than a year after his first trip to the hospital.

Angie Griggel credits his quick recovery to his positive attitude.

“He didn’t complain,” she said. “He really wanted to get back to school and get on with his life.”

Adam Griggel said his father, Steven Griggel, who was paralyzed from the neck down in an accident when Adam Griggel was 13, was his inspiration.

“(My father) is a quadriplegic, so I look at my injury as nothing,” he said.

Life after surgery
Now that he has recovered, Griggel is back to doing the things he used to, such as running and snowboarding.

Along with his normal activities, Griggel also works at Eau Claire Academy as a resident treatment worker, with 10 to 15 year olds with family or emotional problems.

Griggel enjoys working with the kids because of their openness and said sometimes they don’t even realize he has a prosthetic leg until he shows them.

“Kids ask the most unique questions,” he said. “They don’t have any discretion or bias toward (my leg); they just want to know how it works.”

Andy Buvala, assistant director at Eau Claire Academy, described Griggel as energetic and hardworking.

“You can tell he certainly enjoys working with the kids,” he said. “He interacts with them in a very genuine manner.”

Griggel said he uses his leg as a way to teach kids to be accepting of others.

“I want to educate younger people that people with disabilities are not different.”

Buvala said the loss of his leg could be one of the reasons Griggel works so well with the kids.

“People that have undergone traumatic experiences often times develop a heightened empathy for others,” he said.

Griggel said he plans to work at the Academy until he graduates.

Although Griggel is doing fine now, he said he went through some hard times during the recovery process.

“I thought, ‘I’m 19 years old, I lost my leg, what is there out there for me?’ ”

He said the support he received from friends and family helped him through this time, and now he is doing almost everything he was before the surgery.

“I’m not ever going to accept that I am different than any other person out there,” he said. “The day that I do accept it is the day I give up.”

The only thing Griggel said he can’t do is play sports, especially soccer, with the same intensity as before.

Angie Griggel said he never lets anything hold him back and she is really proud of the way he handled the whole situation.

“He’s not at all embarrassed or shy about (his leg),” she said. “He’s a trooper.”