Stu Bykofsky: At Magee Rehab, he's the 'closer' for a good cause
HE'S BEEN called "Magee's Brad Lidge." Meaning that Jerry Segal is a "closer" when he makes his pitch to friends, asking for money to support the superlative Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Center City.
HE'S BEEN called "Magee's Brad Lidge."
Meaning that Jerry Segal is a "closer" when he makes his pitch to friends, asking for money to support the superlative Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Center City.
An elfin lawyer, Jerry became Magee's cheerleader and benefactor after a bad break sent him there 20 years ago.
He went in for routine neck surgery on the West Coast in 1988 with two good legs, but came out paralyzed from the chest down. Transferred to Magee, he was wheeled in on a gurney. He vowed he would walk out on his own and 4 1/2 months later, he did.
It was on crutches, but on his own.
It sounds odd, or awful, to say that bad break was one of the best things that ever happened to him. Although he already had a great law practice, a great family, a great golf game, a great life, the devastating injury propelled Jerry into the arms of Magee and provided him with his life's mission.
Since 1990, by combining his passion for golf and his friendship with many of the region's power players, he has raised $8 million for Magee with his annual Jerry Segal Classic.
Well, it was annual until last year, when Jerry suffered another bad break - a fall stepping out of the shower that robbed him of his legs . . . again.
He had to cancel last year's 19th annual fundraiser.
"I spent my time trying to get well instead of the golf tourney," he tells me as we prepare to visit the spinal-cord-injury floor at Magee. Because of the latest injury, Jerry is in a Go-Go motorized chair.
Even though the Classic didn't happen, in a tribute to his inspiration, Jerry's network of friends and supporters sent in $500,000 anyway.
I call it a "virtual Classic" and Jerry, 68, laughs. The physical Classic returns this year, on Sept. 25 at the Green Valley and ACE country clubs. (Details at www.segalclassic.com.)
Cancelling it last year created "a terrible, terrible void up here," says Jerry, gesturing to his head "and here," gesturing to his heart. "I felt we let the patients down."
Three or four times a week, Jerry visits Magee, making his rounds, talking with patients and staff, chatting up the newcomers. I think of him as the morale officer.
In the bright and spacious spinal-cord unit, he gets off the Go-Go and uses his crutches, which is painful for me to watch. He does it to show newcomers how far he's come as he offers chipper words of encouragement.
He shakes hands and asks them to squeeze his hand. "Harder!" he demands. He doesn't tell them his hands are so damaged he can't feel the squeeze at all.
Before he arrived at Magee, he was told he'd never walk again, Jerry tells the patients. Standing there is proof the diagnosis was wrong. I don't know what they'd say if they knew he would be playing golf that afternoon.
Michael Beck is new to Magee. While making lunch one day, the 42-year-old commercial printer from W. Berlin, N.J., had a rare spinal stroke. The pain went up and he went down, paralyzed below the waist. A surgeon gave him a 5 percent chance of full recovery.
Then he arrived at Magee.
"The progress is going through the roof," he tells Jerry and Jerry beams.
Three weeks ago, he was barely able to wiggle his toes, he tells me.
"Something is going on. It's lightning-fast. Maybe it's a higher power. I don't question it," says Beck, freely rotating his legs.
Jerry says, "I get more pleasure out of this than over any verdict I ever received. To see that guy believe he can do it, and then he does it, it's a great feeling."
Brian Hickey was transferred to Magee last year from Camden's Cooper University Hospital after a vicious hit-and-run left him immobile.
When he got to Magee, "I could not walk or talk. A week after getting there I took my first steps," he says.
"From death's doors, something shifted in my head where I started getting better by leaps and bounds. . . . Cooper saved my life and Magee gave it back to me full force," he says.
Jerry is happier when I write about other people whose lives were salvaged by Magee.
I ask him three times whether he's better or worse than before his fall.
Three times he dodges with an answer like, "I get better every day."
He's as positive as a saint, focused as a falcon. That may account for his fundraising prowess. Because of the economy, if a businessman sends in "only" $10,000 for the Classic (and Magee), he might get a call from Jerry, resulting in another $5,000 check going out.
That's why, at Magee, they call him the closer. *
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: