Reason to Celebrate : Paul Aggen Will Don Cap, Gown for a Graduation He Almost Didn’t Live to See

Any high school graduation is special, not only for the graduate but for the graduate’s parents. However, “special” misses the mark by a mile as far as Paul Aggen’s mother is concerned.

“I’d say miracle just about covers it,” Beverly Aggen said.

This afternoon, she and Paul’s father, Cliff, and their other two children will watch the 1997 Adolfo Camarillo High School graduation from the stadium bleachers--a ceremony they feared they might not attend.

The Aggens will be easy to spot.

“Paul will be the one in the wheelchair down on the field with the rest of his classmates,” his mother said. “We’ll be the ones in the stands blubbering.”

They will be happy tears for a change.

Paul, 18, won’t officially graduate. He’s three classes short. But 1 1/2 years after a car accident threw him into a tree and a months-long coma, he’ll do something more significant: He will be there.

He will be with buddies he has attended school with since kindergarten. The ceremony will be a symbolic graduation, to celebrate his return to near normalcy after near death.

It was in a hallway outside the emergency room of St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital when his parents learned that Paul’s death was a real possibility.

Parents who have reared teenagers know about the call, the one they hope never comes. It was a rainy Saturday night when the phone rang in the Aggens’ Camarillo home. Cliff and Beverly Aggen were about to go upstairs to bed. None of their children were home.

Paul, their youngest at 16, was working the late shift at the nearby Crab House Restaurant.

The call came at 10:30.

“There’s been an accident.” It was Paul’s supervisor at the Crab House. “An ambulance is taking Paul to Pleasant Valley Hospital.”

Paul’s car had skidded out of control on a rain-slick road during the season’s first downpour, almost in view of the restaurant. The car jumped a curb and rammed a tree. Paul was badly hurt, suffering bruises, broken bones and a massive head injury.

A friend who was riding with him received only minor injuries. Paul’s parents rushed to the hospital, screeching to a stop outside the emergency-care entrance at the same time as the ambulance.

Forced to wait outside the emergency room, they milled in the hallway, waiting for someone to tell them what was wrong. A broken leg? Was he unconscious?

“Then our parish priest showed up,” Beverly Aggen recalled. “ ‘Oh, hello,’ we said to him. What are you doing here?’ Then it dawned on us. That was when the panic set in.”

Paul had a skull fracture and was unconscious. The main thing that first night was to keep him breathing--doctors feared for his life in those first few hours.

But he survived and the next day, still unconscious, Paul was transferred to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard for neurosurgery.

The Aggens spent the following months waiting for Paul to come back to them. On Jan. 3, his right eye blinked, a belated New Year’s gift. A week later, Beverly noticed that same eye was attempting to track her across the room.

By the end of March, his left eye was opening once in a while. Enough improvement followed so that, a few months later, he was able to go home to begin his rehabilitation.

Paul is still a work in progress, still trying to regain full mobility and speech.

For the first few months of his recovery, communication was severely limited. But although his physical capabilities lag, he is as mentally alert as before the accident.

He began home study classes six months after the accident with a Camarillo High teacher, is progressing with all forms of physical therapy and last week started a communications class at Ventura College.

“Now, you can barely shut him up,” said a delighted Beverly Aggen.

This summer, she said, Paul will be worrying about his future--as in what college to go to. Paul is close to walking too, although it will be a while before he masters it.

A remote-control wheelchair is in the future, she said. But, she said, it will have to be one with a governor--a device for controlling speed. Her 6-foot, 18-year-old son is suddenly starting to move a little too fast for her.