September 2021 Polo Players' Edition- Happy Ending

Happy Ending

Family Relieved with Pedrito Heguy’s Long-Awaited Recovery

By Lucas Noel

Pedrito’s grandparents, including Alberto Pedro Heguy (above), were happy to spend time with him during his recovery.

Eduardo Heguy’s son, Pedrito is going through the last stages of his recovery after having suffered a double fracture at the base of his skull in February.

The image published by Eduardo Heguy himself on his social media networks on the day Pedrito finally returned home describes, as no words can do, the ordeal and anguish this traditional polo family has lived through during these months.

The videos posted by @rusoheguy in May, when his son came back home, and the last week of July, when they traveled to the family residence in La Pampa, are a triumph of emotion, science, strength and faith behind an 11-year-old boy who had the entire polo community in Argentina on tenterhooks.

“And one day Pedro returned to La Pampa.” With that sentence ‘Ruso’ and his wife Paz Manau shared once again the immense joy of their loved ones and of all those who prayed for the health of one of their four children. It is the cold winter season in Argentina, but Pedrito was locked up for too many days beyond any pandemic quarantine, so there is no way to keep him still.

“It is incredible how many people he has mobilized, people who knew him and many who didn’t, from here in Argentina and from many parts of the world. We are eternally grateful,” affirms an emotional Eduardo.

Earlier, on May 1, it was an unforgettable day when he went back home to Pilar. There he was reunited with his sisters 15-year-old Pampa and 9- year-old Luján, while his 17-year-old brother Cruz had traveled to England to play his first season in the high handicap. His father filmed Pedrito in the garden kicking a soccer ball with his left foot, a sign of his miraculous rehabilitation.

“He walks more, he moves better, he goes out, he goes back and forth. And he is very careful, always with his [head] protector,” clarified a happy Papa Heguy. As soon as he returned home, Pedrito also began to practice some golf shots, but his daily routines were far from playful. He does kinesiology, therapy, speech therapy sessions and uses the protector at all times as a precaution. “He only takes it off to sleep. He is doing well, thank God. Much better than we imagined. Step by step,” explained Eduardo.

Ruso Heguy, his wife Paz and daughters Pampa and Luján were happy to have Pedrito home after 84 days. A helmet helped protect his head during his recovery.

Fortunately, that Friday, February 5, is getting further away every day. That is the day Pedrito suffered a very hard fall while playing a family polo tournament at the Chapaleufú Club in Intendente Alvear, La Pampa. The impact was extremely dangerous because he could not break away from the stirrups and fall far from the horse, but hit the ground with force in the form of a whiplash. He was rushed to various medical centers. First in the town itself, then to the city of General Pico and finally to the provincial capital in Santa Rosa.

The first days were critical, with a brain operation needed to relieve pressure. He had bone fractures in the base of his skull and remained in a medically induced coma for more than a week. Subsequently, he was transferred in a medical plane to Austral hospital, in the town of Pilar, province of Buenos Aires. And some time later, in a second stage of rehabilitation was moved to the Fleni sanatorium in Escobar. He stayed there until the long-awaited return home 84 days after the accident.

Throughout this process, there were daily prayer chains from family, friends, relatives and sports colleagues all over the world. An enormous amount of messages of solidarity to Ruso—former 10-goaler and four-time champion of the Argentine Open with Indios Chapaleufú II—were always answered with, “The energy that reaches us from everywhere is wonderful.”

Joy shook the atmosphere with his arrival home, to his room, reuniting with his dog, Loli, not to mention the constant calls to his grandparents, the legendary Alberto Pedro Heguy—17-time champion of the Argentine Open with the legendary Coronel Suarez team—and Silvia Molinari who traveled from La Pampa and spent three days at the home of another of their champion sons, Pepe Heguy, to enjoy time with their grandson. After having followed minuteby-minute the details of the distressing story and seeing how he evolved within the expected parameters, they were able to visit, listen and see him again, all happy and reunited as a family.

Doctors implanted a prosthesis in Pedrito’s skull during his final surgery in July.

“Thank you very much. I am already perfect. Thanks a lot to all those who prayed for me,” Pedrito says these days on social networks, touching the right side of his head. He refers to the area operated on after the first hours of the accident to mitigate the pressure.

The last intervention he underwent in July was the one in which a plastic prosthesis was placed in the area, which is the final surgical part of the recovery process planned by the medical team that takes care of him, headed by neurosurgeon Roberto de Rosa and therapist Silvio Torres.

Pedrito knows everything that has happened to him since February. Many things he does not remember, something that the doctors maintain as positive. But even so, his father told him everything, even showing him some images of the day-to-day recovery early on, and videos, like the greeting he sent to grandfather Alberto Pedro asking him to “get his f**king horses ready.”