Community rallies for Riley

Local and surrounding communities are rallying prayers for a Clarendon High School junior who remains hospitalized this week following a life-threatening injury he sustained during the Broncos’ football game with Lockney Friday night, October 9.

Riley Shadle suffered two broken and dislocated vertebrae when he collided head on with a Lockney player, his grandfather, Jim Shadle, told the Enterprise Tuesday morning.

The Shadle family was giving thanks for the prayers that have offered from far and wide, and Jim said Riley was getting some sensation in his upper body and able to shrug his shoulders but that only time would tell the extent of his injury or length of his recovery.

“It’s all just baby steps right now,” Jim said. “He basically needs to rest, and he’s still got a vent tube in, but he’s very cognizant and wants to talk.”

Jim and his wife, Susie, weren’t at the game, but they beat Riley to the Lubbock hospital after they got the call and said the whole experience has been very scary.

“He had no feeling at all from the neck down when it happened and was having some trouble breathing,” Jim said. “It was the C3 and C4 that was fractured and, worse than that, displaced. The surgeon said it was the worst displacement he had seen without the spine being severed.”

Riley, the son of Che and Linde Shadle, was playing offense in the third quarter when the injury occurred. He was transported to the Lockney hospital and then airlifted to University Medical Center in Lubbock, where he underwent five surgeries over three days to align and stabilize the vertebrae and relieve swelling of his spinal cord.

Doctors also had to work on blood vessels going to Riley’s head that had been crimped in the injury, performing an angioplasty to straighten them out.

“He’s holding up good right now, but we’ve just got to let the Lord take it and wait and see.”

Jim praised the staff at UMC and said Riley’s surgeon has been great, being very thorough and explaining everything as things progress.

The outpouring of love and concern from not only Clarendon but also Lockney and other communities has made an impact on the Shadle family.

“It’s just overwhelming,” Jim said. “But I’ve always said that’s our finest commodity in the Panhandle and West Texas – the people. We may have differences on some things, but when people are hurting we come together. The Lockney people have just been unbelievable.”

Donations, prayers, and support have flooded in from Lockney, Valley, Hedley, and elsewhere. Valley ISD students and Memphis students wore Clarendon’s school colors Monday to show support for Riley.

Clarendon students wore Bronco clothes Tuesday, and the CHS Fellowship of Christian Athletes hosted a Riley Rally in the school auditorium Tuesday morning.

An account has been established at the Donley County State Bank to support the family during this time. Donations can be made at the CHS office or the bank. The CHS Student Council is also selling “Pray For Riley” t-shirts to raise funds for the family. They are $15 each and can be purchased by calling the school at 806-874-2181.

An online GoFundMe account has also been started at www.gofundme.com/zd6925zw.

Jim Shadle said the family appreciates all the support, donations, love, and prayers that have been given for Riley and they ask for continued prayers for healing in the days ahead.

Prayers were also being said this weekend for a recent Hedley High School graduate. Seth Ruthardt was a member of the Class of 2014 and was severely injured in a motorcycle accident over the weekend, suffering five fractured vertebrae in his neck, two broken ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. Social media reports said Ruthardt was in ICU but expected to be okay.