It was just another jump for Cal Poly senior decathlete James Nunno.
Last March, Nunno said he was feeling bigger, faster and stronger than he had ever felt before, training to defend his 2007 Big West Conference decathlon title. Deciding to test his best event on a warm Tuesday afternoon, he took the pole-vaulting runway, ready to catapult himself in the air after a full sprint like he had done so many times before. Yet as Nunno left the ground and the pole flexed, it shattered in half — ricocheting off the ground and striking him in the abdomen as he awkwardly fell into the pit. The worst he expected were some broken ribs, but little did he know this time he was competing for his life.
“I was in a ton of pain, not matched by anything I’ve felt before,” said Nunno, who was feeling woozy and had to recollect himself before jumping down from the pad.
“But there wasn’t external bleeding; it felt like my ribs were really sore so maybe I thought I bruised or fractured ribs.” Cal Poly’s multi-event coach Jack Hoyt likened the rare accident to someone taking a full swing at your ribs with a bat, adding the broken pole could have easily impaled the architectural engineering senior.
But a Cal Poly trainer determined nothing was wrong with his ribs despite the constant pain, swelling, trouble breathing and the significant welt caused by the pole that spanned across his back, down his side and through his ribs. The trainer simply instructed Nunno to go home and rest.
If Nunno had taken the trainer’s advice there is a good chance he would not be alive, let alone be the No. 20 ranked decathlete in the nation or earn his second Big West title May 8, about a year after his injury.
While in the trainer’s room, a friend of Nunno’s noticed he was losing color in his face and said, “If I didn’t know any better, it looks like you are bleeding out.” But everyone seemed to brush it off, Nunno said.
Luckily, Nunno’s mom was in town and advised her son to go get an X-ray. At the Health Center the athlete’s vision became spotty and he almost passed out.
“That’s when everybody realized there’s probably something more going on,” Nunno said.
After rushing to the Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, the CAT scan revealed Nunno ruptured the main artery in his spleen and lost 3 pints of blood. His only option was to have surgery immediately or else he would internally bleed to death.
“It was a blessing that his mom was at practice that day and could just load him in the truck and get him to ER because he may have just wandered off to his room and died there,” Hoyt said.
Nunno echoed his coach’s observation.
“If I would’ve went home and went to sleep that night, I wouldn’t have woken up,” Nunno realized.
Freshman Cal Poly decathlete Corbin Duer had been training closely with Nunno and was integral to his recovery, Nunno said.
“Once I heard he had to go the hospital, I was scared he might not be back,” Duer said.
When he first got into the emergency room, they gave him medicine to take his mind off the pain, but it did the exact opposite.
“(The medicine) amplified the pain,” Nunno said. “It was like Chinese water torture, all my focus was on the pain and I thought, ‘pull the plug, do what you gotta do because I’m going crazy.’”
Once Nunno woke up from surgery, he looked down at 21 staples in his stomach where doctors cut from his sternum to his belly button through abdominal muscle and tissue and rearranged his internal organs. He was forced to live off an IV for a week until his digestive system functioned again. It felt as though his stomach was trying to rip open each time he laughed or coughed.
“I had enough nutrients to live but that’s about it, so my body pretty much started eating itself, my eyes had sunk in, cheek bones became pronounced and I looked like death.”
Hoyt said he looked like prisoner of war of 10 years having lost about 20 pounds of muscle, a frustrating setback.
From the day after the surgery Nunno viewed everything as a challenge, from getting out bed on his own a week later to eventually get back into old form, agonizingly slowly. After three months, he could jog and after about five months he could lift light weights and begin to strengthen his core. It was his competitive spirit that willed him to spend hours on the track, regain eligibility and recover from missing months of class with a demanding major.
“It was probably one of the most frustrating parts of my life,” Nunno said slowly as his voice deepened. “It was just like overwhelming, being given this huge list of things I
have to do that you need 10 years to do it and I had only less than a year to do it.”
Afraid of re-aggravating his injury, Nunno didn’t even attempt vaulting until November. He didn’t have enough time to regain his strength, but he could perfect his technique, said Hoyt, who was worried his technique would diminish in order to compensate for the significant decrease in strength.
“He probably likes having the challenge (of rebounding from the injury),” Hoyt said. “He picked the hardest major, the hardest sport and wanted to do it all. I wouldn’t want to take anyone else to a meet because he is the most competitive guy ever, because if you want it that badly you won’t lose.”
About a year later, Nunno found himself neck-and-neck with Duer on May 8 at the Big West Conference Multi-Event Championship hosted by University of California, Irvine. Nunno gained ground in the standings by posting a 16 foot, 4 3/4 inch clearance in the pole vault and earning second with two events to go. He dropped a spot after only throwing one javeline, mustering up enough energy and favoring a sore groin for the final event — the 1,500.
“I really have a shot at this,” Nunno said. “I have put so much work and so much of myself into it that I just went out there and gave it my all.”
He needed to beat Duer, who was in first going into the final event, by seven seconds.
Nunno said he probably “scared the crap” out of his coach after he recorded splits of 28 seconds at the first 200 and 62 seconds after the first lap. Hoyt was yelling “Slow down” from across the track, Nunno acquiesced, but not until he clocked a personal best 4:32.57 and accumulated a 7,208 points. He finished 20 seconds in front of Duer who finished second while tallying a personal best 7,135 points.
“It was too fast, that’s like a 4-minute mile pace; it would’ve won conference,” Hoyt explained. “I didn’t know if he was actually going to finish or if was going to pass out.”
Hoyt said the run was inspiring, Nunno looked as though he was possessed; it gave him goosebumps.
“His passion for the sport and race took over; running on pure passion, you don’t run any better when you are doing that,” Hoyt added.
“I was blown away that he took it out so hard after the second and third lap; I was amazed at what he was able to do,” Duer said.
Nunno was emotional after crossing the finish line for the first time after winning an event, he said.
“When you see people get emotional after that, it’s just because you invest so much of yourself into it and to have the reward of getting the payback is so overwhelming,” Nunno said.