Carlos Flores, 18, the Fort Lupton resident and former Frederick High School football player, will soon in Craig Hospital for the next few months.
    He’s paralyzed after a car crash last week near Johnstown.
    It would be easy to talk about the support he and his family have received since the crash, how the school and his friends have rallied to his bedside, how the school is organizing fundraisers to turn his home into a handicap-accessible facility and to put him in a wheelchair when that time comes. It’s one of the joys of seeing a small town go to work on a communal goal.
    But one thing that parallels this tragedy and another in the reporter notebook is even more present than support.
    A smile.

o o o

His name was Tom Young, a native of and a veteran firefighter in Golden. He fell backward over a cliff 20-something years ago during a rescue and was paralyzed. He wanted to finish off what the injury did while he was in the hospital.
    A bunch of folks walked from Golden to St. Anthony Hospital to yell support at his room window (and presumably at him). From that day forward, he stopped using a ventilator.
    He’s back at work — 20 hours a week, the last time I knew. The fire department even set up a training session for him inside a smoke house — complete with his sip-and-puff wheelchair.
    I saw him about a year ago. He had then — and still does have — an enormous smile on his face and is so happy to spend more time on the face of the earth.

o o o

Here’s some advice – even knowing how cheap it is – for what it’s worth. There is no doubt that Carlos and his family appreciate all of the visits and the cards that have come their way. Long-term, the thing he will appreciate more than anything is to be treated as if this didn’t happen. Allowing for the certain down days, he’ll have the same smile, the same personality he always has had.
    It helps to not be an expert on much of anything. But the journalistic “trick knee” says a combination of today’s medicine and attitude by all involved will let Carlos make the most of a terribly tragic incident.
    The town already started the attitude part of the recovery last week and Monday night. I’m anxious to see the rest of it play out.