S
hay Eskew would like to attach his prosthetic right ear to a necklace and wear it for the swim portion of triathlons, clipping it to side of his head as he enters
transition.
It would make sense, the 38-year-old figures, to treat the ear as another piece of equipment, one he needs to hold sunglasses in place. Plus, it would be fun to gauge the reactions of people. Eskew would do it, too, were it not for the protests of his wife Brooke and knowing that the ear costs $10,000 to replace. He once lost it cycling and spent hours in the dark retracing a two-mile stretch before finding it undamaged along the side of the road. Eskew’s training stories and twisted sense of humor are not those of a normal triathlete but, then again, his is hardly a conventional story. Eskew, which he often abbreviates as “SQ,” is a married father of four children 6 and under who maintains a rigorous triathlon schedule, including competing in last year’s ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championship. He does it all while working in suburban Nashville as a salesman in the health technology sector. None of which he could have predicted growing up in Atlanta, where he dealt with horrific injuries and taunts from kids who called him “Freddy Krueger” after the disfigured villain of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” horror films.
In 1982, at the age of 8, Eskew
suffered burns and burn-related scarring on more than 65 percent of his body. A 15-year-old neighbor girl accidentally doused him and a 7-year-
old buddy with gasoline while dealing with a nest of yellow jackets.
The boys caught fire and flames engulfed the right side of
Eskew’s face, neck, shoulder, and stomach. The 8-year-old had the foresight to drop and roll to extinguish the flames, but not before sustaining damage that doctors predicted would prevent him ever from playing sports.
Eskew quickly proved them wrong, but dealing with his appearance, which included the loss of his right ear, was more of a challenge. The sight of amputees and wheelchair-bound people is commonplace, after all, but burn victims are unusual. “People can’t help but stare or say something,” Eskew says. “At some point I conceded that I was going to be single the rest of my life. People are incapable of overlooking the burns. That’s what drove me to sports. I figured it would compensate for a lack of physical beauty.”
Despite the first of 30 surgeries and mobility issues that even now keep him from breathing on the left side while
swimming and limit his ability to turn to the left, he became an All-American high school wrestler, a champion boxer at the University of Tennessee, and later a competitive mountain biker. Along the way, he developed a sense of humor to deal with the insensitive comments and put people at ease. When kids called him Freddy Krueger, he’d smile and break out the horror film character’s signature line, “I’ll see you in your dreams.” When, as a teenager, younger kids at the pool would point to the right side of his head, Eskew would pretend his ear had just fallen off and was resting near the pool drain. Soon a bunch of 6- and 8-year-olds were diving to retrieve it. Eskew’s hearing is limited on the right side, though it’s better than people realize, especially with the prosthetic ear he’s only been able to afford in recent years.
People will ask if he can hear in the right ear.
“What?” Eskew will shout, goading them to talk increasingly louder before he lets them in on the joke. Eskew says his disfigurements have helped him in the world of sales, which typically is dominated by tall men and attractive women — people who make memorable impressions. “People don’t soon forget a one- eared burn victim,” says the 5-foot-8 Eskew, whose wife marvels at how restaurant hostesses treat them like VIPs when they return for a second time. Not everything is amusing, of course. Eskew has high-deductible health insurance that makes some treatments cost prohibitive. A scar from the incision for his prosthetic ear has thickened and resembles a tumor on the side of
his head that oozes constantly. He must wear a guard over the screws that attach the prosthetic ear to keep skin from growing over them.
Pain? As a kid, the grafted skin on the right side of his body would split open as he grew, requiring more skin grafts from other areas.
Not surprisingly, Eskew developed a high tolerance for pain. Over the years, he’s also been attacked by a bear, endured a major car accident, broken eight bones, torn an ACL and suffered a concussion.
“Bad things happen,” Eskew says. “The key is how you deal with them.”
Eskew realized early that his burns would prevent him from excelling in finesse sports such as basketball or golf, but the pain threshold made him a natural for wrestling, boxing and ultimately triathlon.
As a young father working in Atlanta in 2008, he worked out to lose weight and build his chest and biceps, the showy beach
USATRIATHLON.ORG USA TRIATHLON 37
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144