By David Harry
Staff Writer

He is home, on his feet and rooting for the Phillies.
Jack Vincent, who was struck by a truck in Buxton in July while trying to dive from a bridge into the Saco River, still wears a neck brace and bears the scars from the accident.
But his recovery from injuries that extended from his head to his ankles will be evident as he attends a benefit dinner Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Clambake Restaurant on Pine Point Road.
“I’ve been really positive through the whole thing. I have worked as hard as I could,” Jack said about his recovery.
Less than a week after his release from a four-week stay at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Jack, 12, started classes in the seventh grade at Scarborough Middle School. From one class per day, his schedule has increased to almost six hours.
At home, he can climb the stairs to his bedroom. That means his mother, Lori Fletcher, can have her first floor bedroom back.
“It’s good, the couch was getting uncomfortable,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said she can laugh a little now, strengthened by a recovery she said is due to her son’s strong will and sense of humor.
 “There were ups and downs. I was absolutely terrified hearing the news and not knowing what was happening,” she said. “Then, slowly, there were different signs he was improving.”
Jack’s injuries included bleeding and swelling in his brain and he needed plastic surgery to repair his face and head. His neck and right shoulder blade were broken.
His pelvis was fractured on both the left and right sides, and there were breaks in his right leg above and below his knee. Only after he began physical therapy at the hospital did doctors discover a fracture in Jack’s right ankle.
While heavily sedated and kept immobile, Jack still flashed his mother a thumbs up sign, she said.
When they removed his breathing tube, he looked at Fletcher and his father, Chris Vincent, and smiled, she said.
Jay Russo, who has coached Jack in youth football and helped organize the “Prayers for Jack Vincent” benefit dinner, recalled a hospital visit where Jack picked up a sponge ball and tried to throw it.
“Jack has demonstrated to everybody that knows him that the heart and will are there,” Russo said.
In the hospital, Jack said he went through physical therapy sessions to regain use of his right arm and hand and his right leg.
“He had a great attitude,” Fletcher said. “He never complained and the nurses loved him.”
 Now Jack wears a neck brace, but that could be removed later this month, Fletcher said. He is not getting physical therapy, but may need some for his upper body after the brace is removed. Future surgeries are a possibility, she said.
Jack, who said he enjoys watching and playing baseball more than any other sport, also plans on playing football next year.
With the uncertainty in the days after the accident came kindness, Fletcher said.
She works at Portland-based insurer UNUM in an online customer service position, and said her colleagues donated unused vacation time to allow her to be with Jack during his hospital stay. Fletcher  is temporarily working from home as Jack recovers.
Jack said he had been to the swimming spot on the Saco River about a dozen times in the last two years, and it was not the first time he dove from the bridge on Route 202.
“I can remember everything until the person before me jumped,” Jack said about the afternoon of the accident.
As he ran across the bridge, Jack was struck by a pickup truck driven by Gregory Harriman of Waterboro, according to York County Sheriff Maurice Ouellette. Harriman was not charged in the accident and Fletcher said she worried about his reaction as well.
“It was a devastating time for all of us, and I was concerned with what he and his family were going through,” she said.
Russo, Jack’s football coach, said efforts to help Jack and his family began in the time when it was uncertain how well he would recover. Russo said his older son Dillon set up a Facebook page called “Prayers for Jack Vincent” which has attracted thousands of friends.
The response led Russo and others to wonder what else could be done, and a benefit dinner was announced last month. Along with a menu of lobster or hot dogs, more than $5,000 of gift certificates and services donated by local businesses will be raffled off.
Russo said there is no specific goal for the fundraiser, where tickets are $25 for the lobster dinner and $10 for the hot dog dinner.
There are seatings at 4 and 6:30 p.m., a cash bar and music provided by a disc jockey.
“It is a response to the community asking what it can do to help,” Russo said of the benefit.
Tickets for the Prayers for Jack Vincent dinner are available at Town and Country Credit Union on Route 1 next to Brown Fox Printing. For more information on the benefit, call Russo at 615-8708 or Win Smith at 831-7578.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219