Partly cloudy skies. Low 33F. NW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph..
Partly cloudy skies. Low 33F. NW winds at 10 to 20 mph, decreasing to less than 5 mph.
George fire chief Bill Sprock, whose leg was recently amputated, and his wife, Sara, converse with guests at a fundraiser meal held on April 30 at Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids, where he was injured in 2018.
Attendees of the fundraiser meal for the Sprocks play in the mud outside the large shed where the meal was held and racecars were displayed. Rain led to the cancellation of the scheduled Test 'n' Tune event, but the racecar show was moved indoors and the meal went on as planned.
A crowd mills about, viewing racecars on display, in a large shed at Rapid Speedway on Saturday, April 30. The fundraiser meal for Bill Sprock, George fire chief, was held concurrently.
Larae Van Der Brink, co-manager of Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids, serves beans to an attendee of the fundraiser held for the Sprock Family at the speedway on Saturday, April 30.
Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids has a 16-week season and features racers from the region and across the country.
Kids play in the mud at Rapid Speedway during a fundraiser meal held for George fire chief Bill Sprock and his family on Saturday, April 30.
George fire chief Bill Sprock, whose leg was recently amputated, and his wife, Sara, converse with guests at a fundraiser meal held on April 30 at Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids, where he was injured in 2018.
GEORGE—Rain didn’t stop a crowd from gathering at Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids on the last Saturday in April to support George fire chief Bill Sprock and his family in the wake of Bill’s recent amputation surgery.
The amputation of the lower portion of Bill’s right leg, which took place at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, on Feb. 22, wasn’t his first surgery. It was his 39th. Bill’s original injury was sustained when he was posted at Rapid Speedway as a volunteer firefighter and flipped his four-wheeler on the way to the scene of another accident on the track.
Bill’s wife, Sara, has been by his side for each surgery, and while the Sprocks are looking ahead to a more hopeful future, they’ve weathered a lot of uncertainty along the way.
“Through all of this, I think I’ve just been waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Sara said of the long road the family has traveled since that first surgery, an emergency operation after a 2018 accident that shattered Bill’s lower leg.
What followed were years of ups and downs, infections and hospitalizations, seeping wounds and slow recoveries. Surgeons placed hardware in Bill’s leg to attempt to piece the bones back together and restore function.
Along with that, there were muscle grafts and bone grafts, and wounds that just would not heal, despite the daily attention provided by Sara, who cleaned and re-dressed them, often meeting Bill halfway between Rock Rapids, where she works, and George to attend to his leg.
“Every time I had surgery, I couldn’t walk on it, and I wasn’t able to go to work,” Bill said.
A crowd mills about, viewing racecars on display, in a large shed at Rapid Speedway on Saturday, April 30. The fundraiser meal for Bill Sprock, George fire chief, was held concurrently.
The 50-year-old has been the George fire chief for the past eight years; he joined the department as a volunteer firefighter in 1994. He also is employed by Sudenga Industries Inc. in George.
The ongoing saga of infections and surgeries also interfered with the Sprocks’ family life. Bill and Sara have two sons, Brandon, 23, who lives at Village Northwest Unlimited in Sheldon, and Spencer, 16, a sophomore at George-Little Rock High School in George.
“I probably missed a good dozen of Spencer’s sporting events because of it,” Bill said.
Bill’s 39 surgeries all stemmed from his accident, which occurred at Rapid Speedway on June 15, 2018. That night, Bill was one of the volunteer firefighters on hand to respond to emergencies at the track.
“I was in corner four, and it was a special series that night,” he said. “There was an accident at the start of the race, and a couple cars flipped and ended up in the fence.”
During the racing season, three local fire departments, including the George department, share responsibility for racing events at the speedway.
The night of the accident, Bill waited until officials threw out the red flag — the signal that it is safe for emergency responders to come onto the track — and Bill headed out on his four-wheeler.
“I was focusing on the scene, and I didn’t see a rut in track, and the four-wheeler bucked me off, and it flipped and landed on me,” he said.
Sara, a longtime member of the Lyon County Ambulance team, was one of the EMTs posted at the track when Bill’s four-wheeler flipped. Her vision was partially obscured by a wall, however, and she didn’t know it was Bill until she ran over to assess the scene.
“I saw the flip,” she said, “and I saw everybody go out, but I couldn’t see who was down.”
Once she got to the scene, she saw it was her husband but shifted into EMT mode, keeping her emotions in check.
“I did head stabilization on Bill,” she said.
Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids has a 16-week season and features racers from the region and across the country.
The ambulance team made a request for a second unit at the track, who attended to the drivers in the original accident, neither of whom were seriously injured, and Sara hopped into the ambulance to accompany Bill to the hospital.
In the ambulance, Sara steadied her hands, took a pair of scissors and began to cut away Bill’s heavy fire gear and boots. Only then did they get a look at the damage. One of the bones in Bill’s lower leg was protruding through the skin.
“The force pushed everything out the left side of my leg,” Bill said.
Later, consulting with their medical team, the Sprocks would learn that Bill’s leg had shattered in a particular pattern. He had suffered a pilon fracture, which means the weight-bearing bone of his right ankle, the talus, was driven with such force into the tibia, one of the two long bones in his lower leg, that it created a compound fracture at the ankle joint.
The fracture eventually would lead to ongoing infections, which required round after round of antibiotics and more surgeries.
Bill’s first hospital stay stretched into nearly six weeks, but the next year, things seemed to be stable.
Attendees of the fundraiser meal for the Sprocks play in the mud outside the large shed where the meal was held and racecars were displayed. Rain led to the cancellation of the scheduled Test 'n' Tune event, but the racecar show was moved indoors and the meal went on as planned.
“That year, 2019, was a good year,” Bill said.
Then the infections started. Sara no longer runs with the ambulance team, but her training, including her years as George Emergency Medical Services chief, was useful in helping care for Bill.
“It was an infection about every three months after that,” Bill said, describing hospital stays, ups and downs, endless appointments with specialists and no lasting success keeping the infections at bay.
Every new surgery had meant the loss of more bone, a weaker and weaker foundation for weight bearing and movement.
“Less than half the bone was left in the ankle area,” Sara said. “We knew he was walking on borrowed time.”
Worn thin by hospital stays and endless infections, they consulted with the team of specialists at Mayo at the beginning of 2020. After weighing their options, they decided on amputation — a new challenge, but one that carried hope for a new start.
“At that point we knew; we were solid in the decision,” Sara said.
The surgery took place on a Tuesday, Feb. 22, and by that Thursday, the Sprocks were on their way home.
“Two weeks later, we went back to Mayo, and I got a clean bill of health,” Bill said.
On Tuesday, May 3, the Sprocks headed to Orthotic and Prosthetic Specialties Inc. in Sioux Falls, SD, to get Bill’s prosthesis, which was created using a cast of Bill’s leg.
Larae Van Der Brink, co-manager of Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids, serves beans to an attendee of the fundraiser held for the Sprock Family at the speedway on Saturday, April 30.
The Sprocks said significant advancements have been made in prosthetic technology in recent decades. Bill’s prosthesis adheres to his leg below the knee through suction created by a silicon sock. Bill slips on the sock, and a small screw clicks into the prosthesis, which is designed to afford Bill the full range of lateral and forward movement.
“Now starts the road toward therapy and rehab and learning to live with a prosthesis,” Bill said.
That includes “fighting fires,” he said.
On April 30, nearly four years after Bill’s accident, several hundred people gathered at Rapid Speedway to share a meal, raise funds to support the Sprock family and view a collection of race cars that were moved indoors to a large storage shed when rain interrupted the outdoor event.
Rain also led to the cancellation of the planned “Test ’n’ Tune,” an annual event that brings area racers to Rapid Speedway each spring for a spin around the track and a tuneup before the racing season begins.
Dereck and Larae Van Der Brink, who have been the track managers at Rapid Speedway for the last eight years, wanted to do something to help the Sprock family in the wake of Bill’s surgery.
“The racing committee meets monthly, and we had talked as a committee that we would like to do something to help the family, especially since the accident happened here,” Larae said.
Aside from Bill’s past racing cars at the track and serving as a volunteer firefighter, Sara remains a regular presence at Rapid Speedway, working the concession stand and infield. Their younger son, Spencer, also races at the track, and Bill joins his racing crew when he’s well enough to do it.
“We just wanted to help the family the best that we could,” Larae said.
Kids play in the mud at Rapid Speedway during a fundraiser meal held for George fire chief Bill Sprock and his family on Saturday, April 30.
The fundraiser meal, available for a freewill donation, was provided by several local sponsors, and the Lyon County Cattlemen Association provided volunteers to cook and serve 300 burgers, along with baked beans, chips and water.
“We were already out of burgers by 12:30,” Larae said. The meal was scheduled to be served between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“It was tremendous and humbling, just the outpouring of graciousness,” Sara said.
She said it can sometimes be hard to be the recipient of help, but she and Bill are determined to “pay it forward.”
“You just know they gave out of the goodness of their hearts,” Sara said.
In the next weeks and months, Bill is focusing on taking small steps forward.
“You need to remember to take it slow,” Sara said, turning to Bill.
“Yes, little steps lead to big steps,” he said, referring to guidance he’s been given by his physical therapists. “Big steps lead to leaps — and that’s the way you want to follow it.”
His doctors say there isn’t any reason Bill can’t learn to move through the world with a prosthesis and get back to a full life, with few limitations.
“It’s time to move on, to get back to life, back to racing, back to the fire department,” Bill said.
As she has been since the beginning, Sara will be at his side, cheering him on.
“He has a determination and drive that is just amazing,” she said.
Bill said the outpouring of support from the community — encouragement on social media, meals donated, the recent fundraiser — have kept him going. He also joined a nationwide Facebook support group for amputees, recognizing that depression is common among people who undergo amputation surgery.
“One thing I told my wife when we did this is ‘I’m not going to turn that direction into a dark hole,’” he said. “My motto has always been, ‘Never look back.’ It’s time to move forward. I’ve never given up.”
Sara’s first goal for Bill is coming up in June.
“I want you to walk at the Village fun run,” she said.
The 17th annual “Run, Walk & Roll,” hosted by Village Northwest Unlimited in Sheldon, will take place at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 4. The event is open to the community and includes a 10K and 5K race and a 1-mile walk or wheelchair roll.
“Maybe not fast,” Sara said, “and maybe not all the way, but that’s the goal.”
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