A year Nico will never forget

“It’s not a sad day at all today,” Lorraine Fiorello said in the living room of her Seaford home on May 17, one year to the day after her son, Nico, was injured in a swimming accident at Jones Beach. “It’s a day to party.”

Nico, now 18, has made a better-than-expected recovery from a broken neck and damaged spine after he dived into the water at Jones Beach and hit his head on a sand bar. Two surgeries and a year of physical therapy later, he is close to living a normal life again.

He will complete his senior year of high school on time, and will attend Hofstra University in the fall. He plans to transfer to Loyola University in Maryland the following year, but agreed to stay home at first because he still requires physical therapy, “Which I completely understand,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with that … anymore.”

Nico wants to get the full college experience and learn to become independent, but realizes his injury will delay that a year. He plans to study kinesiology, the science of body movement. His possible career options include physical therapist, athletic trainer or rehabilitation assistant. His ordeal over the past year factored into his decision. “It’s definitely influenced my life and my career decision,” he said, adding that he wants to give back to a profession that has helped him so much.

He estimates that he is about 80 percent recovered since the accident. Movement on his left side is just about back to normal, but he still has limitations on his right side.

With his right arm, he can text, do some writing, play video games, use a remote control, eat and, of course, hug his mother. But he can’t throw anything or cut with a knife. He attends physical therapy twice a week, has a personal trainer visit his house twice a week, and has exercises he has to do on his own, many of which focus on strengthening his core.

“I wasn’t expecting to recover so fast,” he said. “I didn’t think I would be able to walk on my own, be back upstairs in my room.”

At school, Nico had several accommodations: He was allowed to leave class early, use the elevator and have extra time for tests. He said he rarely used those, he said, because he wanted to have as close to a normal senior year as possible.