eather Brook lounged in the pool with her family in the small beach town of Jaco, Costa Rica. She waited for her son, junior Trevor Brook, to return from his tennis lesson about a half mile from their condominium. Around 5 p.m. the blistering July sun started to sink down closer towards the horizon when a woman who Mrs. Brook had never seen before came up to her. With her she brought news that still scares Mrs. Brook to this day.

“She said that I should go change, and to hurry, because [Trevor] was hurt bad,” Mrs. Brook said.

What started out as a relaxing vacation soon turned into a nightmare. Mrs. Brook was informed by the woman that she and three other men who were American missionaries had seen Trevor get hit by a motorcycle and had taken him to a local clinic.

Mrs. Brook found Trevor lying limp on a massage table at the clinic, blood streaming out of his mouth, holding his two front teeth in his hand. His face was swollen and cut, and his right leg had swollen to twice its normal size. Doctors moved all around him, cleaning his cuts and stitching up his face and knee. Given that Trevor was the only one who spoke Spanish in the Brook family, the missionaries stayed with them and translated for the doctors. Because they were worried about the bruising on Trevor’s stomach, they recommended transporting him to a hospital in Punta Arenas, two hours away, where they had an X-ray machine so that they could check for internal bleeding.

“When a doctor tells you to do something, you do it,” Mrs. Brook said. “I told Trevor everything was going to be okay, but I was really worried he was going to die from internal bleeding.”

The hospital in Punta Arenas was not like a standard American hospital. The waiting room had no doors and dirt layered the floor. Trevor was placed against the wall with his IV bag hanging over the EXIT sign.

“It was like a M*A*S*H hospital, you know, with old tiles, half of them broken,” Mrs. Brook said.

After a visiting doctor from another hospital helped with translations, Mrs. Brook was relieved to find out that Trevor did not have any internal bleeding. However, another worry from the doctor came when they said Trevor might have a cracked skull and needed a CAT scan at another hospital in San Jose-another two hour drive.

Mrs. Brook insisted that Trevor be transported to a private hospital in San Jose. At 1 a.m. they were finally comforted by clean floors and bilingual doctors. There they learned that Trevor didn’t have a crack in his skull, but he did have a concussion and a cracked jaw bone. He had also hurt his right knee and ended up with seven stitches in his knee and nine in his chin, but after seeing dozens of specialists, Trevor was expected to make a full recovery if he underwent physical therapy.

After Trevor awoke in the hospital, he immediately asked his parents what had happened and if anybody had called his girlfriend, junior Jaci Stanton. Stanton was supposed to fly to Costa Rica that week to spend time with the Brook family, but was told by Trevor’s younger brother Derek not to come because there had been an accident.

“Derek told me he didn’t know what had happened either, so I didn’t even know if he was alive,” Stanton said. “I started hyperventilating and crying, and all I wanted to do was talk to him.”

After three nights in the hospital, Trevor and his father flew home. Juniors Nic Record, Bryan Horner, Dylan Blount, Ali Schlomen and Zak West waited outside the Brook home for over an hour waiting for Trevor to arrive. They greeted him with a brand new iPod that they and other members of the tennis team had bought to replace the one Trevor had smashed during the accident. Stanton arrived later, and the group hung out with Trevor the rest of the day.

The rest of Trevor’s summer was spent sitting at home and going to physical therapy, but Stanton, his father, and his friends were by his side while the rest of the family finished out their stay in Costa Rica.

“Trevor’s condition looked so painful that sometimes all I wanted to do was make a big deal about it and cry, but I knew that would make him feel weird so we just hung out like a normal time,” Stanton said.

Now, almost four months later, Trevor is left without any lasting effects besides a few scars and the absence of a few of his teeth, which will get replaced in eight months. The details of the accident will always be something the family will never be able to fully understand since Trevor has no memories of the event.

“We’ve tried emailing the missionaries to see what happened, but they haven’t responded,” Trevor said. “Sometimes I’m glad that I don’t remember what happened, but at the same time it’s a huge mystery to me and I’d like to know.”

Even though Mrs. Brook still tears up when reminiscing on the moment she found out Trevor was hurt, she and the rest of the family have maintained a positive outlook on the situation.

“We all feel very lucky that everything that happened to Trevor is fixable,” Mrs. Brook said. “Trevor and the rest of the family have also come to learn that most people are truly genuine and that even strangers will do whatever they can to help.”