South Tidewater News

Nicola Vidal was in shock, and blessedly so. His leg had been broken, his knee ligaments torn to shreds and he was bleeding profusely. For the time being, he was feeling little pain, and didn't know how badly he was injured.

Minutes earlier, Vidal and his Old Dominion men's tennis teammates had been celebrating. They hosted the ITA Atlantic Super Regionals earlier in the day, and Vidal teamed with Luca Maldoner, a junior from Austria, to win the title by defeating the University of Virginia's top doubles team.

ODU's Francois Le Tallec also won the singles title on what had simply been a glorious day for the Monarchs.

They went out to dinner and then stopped at a convenience store to pick up some chips and soft drinks and continue the celebration at Vidal's house.

But as he stood outside the store watching his teammates, Vidal suddenly began to feel uneasy.

"Out of nowhere, I heard a car turn on," he said. "I heard wheels screeching. I turned my head and saw a car was headed towards me."

He didn't have time to move, and the car plowed into his leg. The driver then slammed the car into reverse and fled the scene.

As he lay on the ground, Vidal saw blood gushing from his leg but said he didn't immediately comprehend the seriousness of what was happening. Blood was pooling all around him and for a few moments, no one knew what to do.

Fortunately, Perrin Priest happened to be in the parking lot, and the Norfolk native and Eastern Shore resident calmly took over and administered first aid that may have saved Vidal's life.

It wasn't until hours later that coaches and players learned that their teammate would live.

And that was just the first act in what was a nightmarish 2021-22 for the Monarchs.

Le Tallec, the junior from suburban Paris, France, tore his meniscus just weeks later and needed surgery. He returned in the spring but says he wasn't himself.

"I was rehabbing the entire spring," he said.

In February, Russia invaded Ukraine, and while it was thousands of miles from ODU, tennis player Yevhen Sirous is a native of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

His family had moved to Lviv, which has largely escaped the war. But his wife's family was in Kharkiv when the war began and spent months hiding in cellars.

Sirous and fellow Ukrainian Yuliia Starodubtseva, the No. 1 singles player on the women's tennis team, spent the entire spring season, and every day since, worrying about their families.

"After every practice, after every match, Yevhen got on his phone to see if his family was safe," head coach Dominik Mueller said. "I can't imagine what he was going through."

Later on, Maldoner injured his knee in a match against Florida Atlantic. He was leading his match and was about to clinch a victory when he had to retire. The Monarchs finished the season with five players.

It speaks to the terrible hardships his team endured last school year that whenever I've asked Mueller about it, he sheds tears.

"This team has been through so much," he said. "But this group never gave up.

ODU Men's Tennis Star Nicola Vidal

"Look at the resume of this team, with all the stuff that's gone on. They've shown so much character."

Especially Vidal.

"Without Nicola, and his great attitude, I don't know whether we would have been able to hold the team together."

Vidal now realizes that the accident could have been fatal. But as he tells the story of that day, the junior from Bagnaria Arsa, Italy does so in relaxed fashion and without histrionics.

He was briefly trapped between the car and a cement trash can and when the car pulled out, he then fell to the ground. Le Tallec held his hand and assured him everything was going to be OK, even though he acknowledges he was terribly worried about his teammate and friend.

"When it first happened, I didn't really know what was going on," Vidal said. "I saw blood going everywhere so I knew I was severely injured. But I had so much adrenaline, the pain was secondary.

"My teammates were shocked and didn't know what to do."

Fortunately, Priest happened to be at the same store with a friend. Priest is a fervent outdoorsman and a former Eagle Scout. He's killed many a deer but said he never witnessed an injury like Vidal's.

"When Nico took a step back, his leg looked like Jello," Priest said. "I've never seen anything lose blood like that. It looked like a beer tap."

He immediately took control. A young Navy sailor, who didn't leave his name, also stopped to help. Priest told the players to get every napkin they could find in the store.

"We shoved napkins in his leg and that didn't stop the bleeding," Priest said. "So, I took off my belt and started a tourniquet.

"Even with the tourniquet applied, he was still losing blood at an alarming rate."

Fortunately, it only took a few minutes for the Norfolk Fire/Rescue truck to arrive. Paramedics quickly realized it was a serious situation and hurriedly put Vidal into the ambulance.

"The pain started in the ambulance," Vidal said. He asked the paramedics to give him something for the pain, but they declined.

"They told me, 'If we give you something for the pain, we have to keep you here and stabilize you,'" he said. "They told me I was bleeding too badly and they had to get me to the hospital.

"The pain just got worse and worse. I was beginning to realize how badly hurt I was."

Yet the worst was still to come. When he arrived at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, he was rushed into the Emergency Room where a doctor quickly began working to stop the bleeding without so much as giving him an aspirin tablet for pain.

"I didn't know what he was doing," Vidal said. "He was moving my legs and I screamed at him to please stop because it hurt so much. It was the worst pain I've ever felt.

"He had an armful of blood. He looked at me and said, 'I can't stop. You're bleeding too much.'

"That was maybe the worst moment."

Minutes later, he was under anesthesia and undergoing emergency surgery. The surgeon didn't set his broken leg or repair damage to ligaments and tendons. The priority was to stop the bleeding and make sure blood was flowing to his lower leg and foot.

Meanwhile, Mueller and his wife had been alerted by players and rushed to Norfolk General. However, because of federal privacy laws, it would be hours before they knew Vidal was OK.

"It took us an hour to find out that he was alive," Mueller said.

Mueller texted Vidal's parents in Italy but was vague about the severity of the injury because he simply didn't have much information.

Because Mueller and his teammates aren't family, federal laws prohibited hospital officials from providing much information. That was frustrating, and prolonged the agony, for Mueller and his players.

"I finally got to see him at 2 a.m.," Mueller said. "And he was so positive.

"I came back the next day and his first question was, 'How do I redshirt?'"

Mueller said the question, spoken with such optimism after such a terrible, needless injury, made him choke up.

"I said, 'Niko, you're a slam dunk redshirt.' He then said, 'I'm going to redshirt. I want to come back. I want to play.'

"His mindset helped the whole team because they saw even after this happened to him, he was so positive.

"I don't know if we would have overcome all of the adversity in the spring if it had not been for the example Nico set for us in the fall."

In fact, before talking to Vidal, the players were leaning toward canceling the fall season.

"But once they visited Nico at the hospital, it brought a sense of calmness over them," said Bruce Stewart, ODU's deputy athletic director and COO.

"Once they talked to him, they said 'We're good. We'll be back on the court tomorrow.' "

Vidal called his parents and assured them he was going to be OK, even though, at that point, he wasn't absolutely sure. It would take time for doctors to determine if he could make a full recovery.

Athletic Director Dr. Wood Selig and Stewart, who overseas ODU's two tennis teams, football and men's basketball, were also at the hospital and offered to fly his parents to Norfolk.

"They wanted to come but I told them that I was coming home for Christmas, and it would be better if I saw them then," Vidal said.

He knew he would be in much better condition in two months.

A couple of days after he was injured, doctors did a second surgery to set the bone and repair the torn ligaments and tendons. The surgery was successful.

Rehabilitation was a painful process, although in the spring, he wasn't lonely when he went to seek treatment from ODU athletic trainer Rachelle Bowman. Le Tallec and Maldoner were also undergoing rehab.

"They worked me overtime," Bowman said with a smile. "Nico made a remarkable recovery. It wasn't easy for him. He was just so determined to come back."

While Mueller credits Vidal with helping the team survive the nightmarish school year, Vidal credits his coach.

"I'm very lucky that he's my coach," he said. "His knowledge of tennis is unbelievable.

"But that's almost a secondary thing for him. He's a very deep human. He really cares about all of us. He cares about our emotions, all that we're feeling.

"He's helped us through the hard times. He's been through it all as a tennis player. The fact that he engages with you in those moments is not something every coach does.

"That's the difference between a good coach and a great coach."

Sirous and his wife, Daria, received good news late last spring when they learned her mother, grandfather and their beloved cat had escaped Kharkiv and were able to travel to western Poland.

Daria and Yevhen Sirous

Before they escaped, Sirous said Daria rarely slept and often spent hours crying after talking to her mother.

Toward the end, her mother said she became so accustomed to missiles and artillery shells falling nearby that she learned to identify them all by the sound they made as they soared through the air.

"It's so hard to watch the person who you're closest to in the world cry every night," Sirous said. "When we learned they had escaped, it was one of the happiest days of our lives."

Like everyone at the accident scene, Priest was initially in shock. It was long after the ambulance had left that he realized the seriousness of what happened.

"At the time it didn't seem real," he said. "I'm thankful that I was able to remain calm and do what I knew had to be done."

The Norfolk paramedics told Le Tallec that if Priest had not applied a tourniquet to his leg, the night could have been tragically different.

"I think maybe he saved his leg or even his life," he said. "He was amazing. He took charge. He knew exactly what to do."

Le Tallec recalls walking home that night after the ambulance took Vidal away.

"You don't think too much about it at the moment, but when I walked home, I couldn't speak," he said. "I couldn't talk any more. I was thinking 'How could that happen? Why did this happen?

"It's not possible, it's just not possible.'

"I was replaying the scene over and over in my head."

The driver who ran the car into Vidal was eventually arrested by Norfolk Police. It is not believed that he targeted Vidal or that he intentionally drove into him.

The back of Vidal's leg remains scarred, but he says he's at full strength and ready for a good year. Vidal said the resiliency his teammates showed last spring was remarkable, especially Sirous.

"It was the hardest thing that could have happened to a player," he said of Sirous. "It touched his whole family, his city, where he's living.

"It's still happening. I give him so much credit for getting through last year."

Coach Dominik Mueller with Francois Le Tallec

Vidal said all that he and his teammates went through last school year is motivation for the upcoming fall and spring seasons.

"I think all of us appreciate more the opportunity to play tennis," he said. "We're going to hustle more, play harder, do that last set in the gym that maybe you weren't doing last year.

"You want to work hard for something bigger."

Le Tallec said they would not have made it through the year without Mueller's leadership.

"We're very strong mentally, and that comes from Dom," he said. "No matter what happened, he was always calm. He always had the right message.

"Because of Dom, we're strong guys and we just don't quit. No matter what happens, we're going to keep playing and try to finish higher."

A native of Frankfrut, Germany, Mueller said last school year was unlike any he's ever experienced or heard of any other college team being forced to endure.

"What happened is going to be a part of our lives forever," he said. "Three major injuries and then a war. The chances of that all happening in the same year are astronomical. The only thing we didn't have was a COVID outbreak.

"The players reacted so well to adversity. Obviously, there was some frustration. They asked, 'Why is this happening to us?'

Nicola Vidal's scars remain, but otherwise he's made a full recovery

"But they always put that behind them and gave their best. They never complained. That's the correct attitude to have when you face adversity. You're going to face adversity in life. Doing so with the correct attitude prepares you for life.

"I'm so proud of them, every one of them. They gave me so much more than I gave them."

In spite of all of the hardships, the Monarchs were ranked 64th nationally, an amazing fete for a team without three of their top players and with Sirous so terribly weighed down by the war in his homeland. Le Tallec also made the NCAA Tournament in singles.

Stewart said it was Mueller's best coaching performance, better even than years in which the Monarchs went to the NCAA Tournament and finished in the Top 25.

"This took such a toll on Dominik," Stewart said. "He really cares about his players. It came to a point where I had to pull him over and let him know, it's going to be OK, we're all in this together.

"This was easily Dom's best season as a coach. You can't measure what he did by wins and losses.

"The impact he made on these young men is something that will be with them their entire lives."

Original source can be found here.