The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — When football game film rolled in their family’s living room, Dustin Plankenhorn watched the plays, learning from what his brothers said as much as what they did.
“Look at that great play!” Derrick Plankenhorn would say, pointing out his highlight. Then on a mistake: “I should have done this better. Next game, I will.”
Derrick, about five years senior, was Dustin’s hero.
The day Derrick collapsed on their high school track about 3 1/2 hours southeast of Atlanta, Dustin watched paramedics try to keep him alive.
Derrick’s death that afternoon gave birth to Dustin’s career in emergency medical service and sent him to Iraq as a U.S. Army combat medic.
For Dustin, the memory of his brother’s death still rolls, the game film he can never forget: Next time I will do better.
Before the day everything changed, the Plankenhorn brothers lived for sports.
The eldest, Brian “Big Plank,” was a star quarterback.
Two years younger, Derrick “Baby Plank” was the 6-foot-2, 160-pound scrappy overachiever. To get out of Brian’s shadow, Derrick had found success in the 400 meters, which also helped boost his speed as a defensive back.
Dustin “Little Baby Plank” was last in line. At the middle school next to Derrick’s high school, Dustin also ran the 400.
“Dustin didn’t have the same natural abilities or talent Derrick did in track,” their mother said.
“I wanted to be an athletic trainer,” Dustin said. “I wanted to be the guy on the sidelines who watched and took care of the athletes.”
On Feb. 19, 2003, Derrick dropped off Dustin at his middle school.
“We had a disagreement --- nothing out of the ordinary,” Dustin said.
They never spoke again.
After school, Dustin’s track team practiced at Southeast Bulloch High School, and so did Derrick’s. About 150 kids saw what happened next.
“Someone fell out,” Dustin recalled hearing. That happened often enough that he didn’t react at first. Then someone mentioned it was Derrick.
“What a wuss,” Dustin thought. “He twisted an ankle and he’s milking it.”
Dustin ran over to where a crowd had formed. Suddenly coaches started CPR, and soon a volunteer fireman, ambulance and paramedics were on the scene. They shocked Derrick’s heart with defibrillator paddles.
“In minutes he was purple,” Dustin recalled at the time.
Suddenly the baby brother had to take responsibility. A teacher gave Dustin a cellphone to track down his parents, who didn’t have cellphones. Another teacher gave him Derrick’s belongings and truck keys.
By the time Dustin locked the truck and got a ride, he was the last one to arrive at East Georgia Regional Medical Center. Dustin’s role never seemed to change --- always behind.
Derrick, 18, had been on a cool-down lap at the track practice. His heart stopped so completely and suddenly that he didn’t even put his hands out to break the fall.
An autopsy showed “acute cardiac dysrhythmia complicating cardiac enlargement,” meaning that an electric disturbance to his heartbeat, along with enlarged arteries, caused his heart to stop.
An organ donor, Derrick left behind bone marrow, eyes and skin that helped at least 26 people.
Left behind for Dustin was a path to heroism and away from inadequacy.
“He said he felt so helpless that day,” his mother said. “Good gracious, he was only 14. But it was all he ever talked about from that day on. He had wanted to help Derrick and couldn’t, and never wanted to feel that way again.”
In high school, Dustin was among the first students to learn how to use the defibrillators that his parents had helped raise money to install. He took classes in first aid and medical assisting.
During football season, his brother’s memory remained present.
Dustin played linebacker, and from the field he could see the school record board dedicated to Derrick.
After his May 2007 graduation, Dustin enrolled in nearby Ogeechee Technical College’s EMS program. Staying alert is a critical EMS skill, and Dustin “was very comical and sly in class and kept everyone on their toes,” recalled Karen Beasley Grabenstein, program director.
In a year, Dustin was certified as an intermediate EMT, just short of paramedic. The adrenaline moments were few and underwhelming.
In early 2009, he visited an Army recruiter. His girlfriend approved, but his parents? They had already lost one son. They didn’t want combat to claim another.
Dustin imagined Army life to be like the movies. “I was scared and kind of excited,” he said. “I thought it was going to be like a trauma every day.”
Around Labor Day weekend 2009, Dustin shipped out to Iraq with the Third Infantry Division, 7th Cavalry Division.
His reality has been an edgy quiet. At Camp Diamondback near Mosul, Dustin saw only a handful of traumas, none life or death. He has to stay on guard, though, for what he has yet to see.
His first trip outside the wire, the truck he was riding in rolled over from the wet road. Of those injured, “one chipped a tooth and another broke a finger.”
In October, Dustin returned home to Fort Stewart, about an hour away from Statesboro. He spoke by phone a few hours after getting re-certified in CPR.
“I thought about Derrick today,” he said. “I still just think, if I had the knowledge I had today, could I have made a difference?”
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution