A new calling

Nevada Highway Patrolman comes back 'new and better' after devastating accident

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His motto can be summed up in three words: adapt, improvise, overcome.

Those words got Bobby Kintzel through the Gulf War when he was in the U.S. Marines and they got him through the last five years.

On April 21, 2001, the Nevada Highway Patrol officer was laying a tire strip on U.S. Highway 95 to puncture the tires of a stolen SUV. The driver, Vornelius Phillips, avoided the tire strip and purposely targeted Kintzel. He crashed the Chevy Tahoe straight into him, hitting him at 95 mph. In 2004, Phillips was sentenced to two life sentences without parole for the rampage that maimed Kintzel, killed one woman and seriously injured another.

Kintzel was air-lifted to UMC where doctors gave him a 2 percent chance of surviving. He suffered a broken leg and fractured pelvis and had massive internal injuries and brain damage. He was put in a medically induced coma for weeks.

"When I woke up I thought I'd been taking a nap," he said. "I went, 'Wow, it must be time to go to work.' "

But he was going nowhere. Besides his injuries, the muscles in his legs had atrophied from being inactive so long.

After being wheeled to physical therapy, he tried to walk his first steps. It resulted in immediate pain, so bad it was "beyond a screaming pain," and he nearly passed out. But he managed one more step before collapsing into his wheelchair.

The weekly rehabilitation exercise became a personal test. The next week, he was determined to walk four steps, and did. The following week, the goal was six steps, which he did. It was his Marine mentality, he said, which made him push himself for two added steps.

In all, he stayed in the hospital for a year. He underwent various surgeries. He remembers nothing of the attempted murder.

His wife, Dawn, an interior designer, quit her job to be at his side. Kintzel said he'd seen wives and girlfriends of fellow soldiers and highway patrol colleagues who left when things got rough. Not Dawn. Her resolve to stand beside him, he said, didn't surprise him a bit.

"She was never one to throw in the towel," he said.

At one time, Kintzel was active in sports. He played baseball and softball and liked to lift weights. Standing 6-foot-1, he was a muscled 230 pounds on that fateful day. Five months later, he weighed 160.

"You might say I was on the ultimate diet plan," he joked.

After he was released from the hospital, he lived in a rehabilitation facility, relearning all the basic things most people take for granted. All the time, he was following those three words.

These days, the 35-year-old is still battling to recover. His sense of smell and his speech are affected, as are his fine motor skills and balance. He has to read and reread things before they are clear, but he's come a long way.

"When you go in a grocery store and see a kiwi, think of Bobby Kintzel. That's how much brain tissue I lost in all this," he said.

Part of his recovery was the training he received at New Horizons, 7674 W. Lake Mead Blvd., Suite 250. There, he underwent occupational therapy and learned computer software -- Photoshop, Power Point, Excel and WordPerfect.

"He's a phenomenal human being," said Jamie Jones, facility coordinator at New Horizons. "When you meet Bobby, you're interacting with and dealing with Bobby, not somebody with a brain injury. He's a dynamic personality."

Still employed by the NHP, he works in an office, using his new skills. He also gives back to the community that sent donations flowing his way. He's spoken at high school assemblies and, on every third Wednesday of the month, at the Clark County Library to those who have DUI convictions.

A book on inspiring people, titled, "Mission Possible," is set to be released this month. It is available on his Web site, www.BobbyKintzel.com.

"I'm not the same Bobby Kintzel that I used to be," he said. "This is a new Bobby Kintzel, a better Bobby Kintzel."