Gas Poisoning Victim Home From the Hospital

Canadian volleyball player Henry Wong went home from a Calgary hospital Wednesday, less than a week after being transferred from San Diego after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning here.

“It’s going really well,” Wong said in a telephone interview from his home Thursday. “My motor skills have been coming back to me. I won’t be a couch potato for long, or at least I don’t want to be.”

Wong, 20, left UC San Diego Medical Center last Friday. He was a member of a Calgary college team staying at the Mission Valley Inn Jan. 1 when a faulty heater killed his teammate, Cory Korosi, 21, and nearly killed him.

The tragedy resulted in a city inspection that found 36 malfunctioning heaters at the hotel, and has spawned a City Council proposal for expanded inspections of heaters at public facilities.

Wong said he is eager to return to his normal schedule of training workouts and volleyball.

“If I had it my way, I’d be back in two weeks. But I don’t think I’ll have it my way. I think it’ll take another month, just because the doctors are really being careful about what I can and can’t do,” he said.

Dr. Patrick Lyden, his physician at UCSD, has said Wong’s quick recovery after a six-day coma boded well for his long-term comeback. Still, carbon monoxide poisoning deprives the brain and nervous system of oxygen, and often is followed by physical coordination problems.

So, for the moment, Wong must concentrate on physical rehabilitation.

“I need to fine-tune my motor skills, things like walking a straight line, walking toe to heel--things that normally you wouldn’t really consider major activities,” Wong said.

He is planning to be back in classes at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in the next week. He also knows his ordeal isn’t really over.

“I don’t think psychologically it’s hit me yet, in terms of everything that’s happened--the loss of my teammate, things like that,” Wong said. “When it does, I’ll just have to deal with it the best I can.”