Injured Pasco longboarder reflects on attack, recovery (with video)

Sean McClintock removed his hat and parted his hair, revealing a curved scar stretching from near his right temple to the top of his head.

“Do you want to touch it?” he asked nonchalantly.

The scar runs deep enough to swallow the tip of a finger and is accompanied by an odd bump above the ear. It’s a sobering reminder of the near-death experience McClintock faced when he was pulled off a longboard — which is similar to a skateboard — last September while cruising down a Pasco hill.

The attack, by an unidentified person in a passing car, caused McClintock’s brain to ricochet off his skull, leading to emergency surgery to remove a section of his cranium.

“They cut a piece of my skull the size of a large Pop-Tart,” McClintock said at his west Pasco house as his 15-month-old daughter, Rian, climbed on him.

McClintock, 25, was placed in a medically-induced coma after the attack on Road 44, where he was riding his longboard to a friend’s house for a barbeque. After a little more than a week in a coma, he awoke and spent another week or so recovering at the hospital.

Family and friends told the Herald at the time that they didn’t know the extent of McClintock’s injuries or the lasting effect it would have on him.

McClintock told the Herald that he has no memory of the crash or his time spent in the hospital. It was like a month of his life never happened.

McClintock — who began talking, walking and eating on his own shortly after waking up — spent another week at a rehab facility in Spokane. Rehab was difficult for McClintock, who has been a daredevil since childhood and didn’t want help with everyday tasks.

“It was like prison to me,” he said. “I’ve never been to prison, but I’ve seen (the Netflix show) Orange Is The New Black.”

Though McClintock lost about 30 pounds after the attack, he jumped back into normal life when he returned home with his wife Alex and daughter.

McClintock said he started playing flag football and riding his bike, all with a helmet, shortly after leaving the hospital. He was even able to pop a wheelie on his dirt bike, and he routinely plays basketball.

McClintock says he will try to take it easy for a while when it comes to action sports, but that he fully intends to get back to longboarding down steep hills and wake boarding.

The attack left McClintock with some complications, like a spotty short-term memory and trouble concentrating in the classroom. He is a student at Columbia Basin College and wants to be a chiropractor some day.

McClintock bought an iPhone watch to help him remember daily tasks. He often peers down at the watch to look for notes on talking points or when to put in a load of laundry.

“It’s hard sometimes to concentrate, to keep focus,” he said. “It’s the little things.”

McClintock found inspiration during his recovery from fellow adrenaline junkie Kevin Pearce, a professional snowboarder who suffered a similar traumatic brain injury in a brutal crash on a half-pipe in Utah.

Pearce’s story and recovery was turned into a documentary called The Crash Reel. McClintock has a signed copy of the film at his house.

Pearce and his brother started the Love Your Brain Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to help people with brain injuries. McClintock is working on recruiting local businesses to hold a yoga event in support of the foundation, he said.

“A (traumatic brain injury) is a silent injury,” said McClintock, who also has become an advocate for helmets in action sports. “You can walk by someone on the street and not realize they have a traumatic brain injury. This can help.”

Police are continuing to search for those responsible for McClintock’s attack. No arrests have been made in the case.

While McClintock was skating down the hill, he apparently got in front of a car, possibly a white sedan. A witness reported the driver honked and a passenger reached out and pulled McClintock off the board.

“It’s still a very active investigation,” said Capt. Ken Roske, Pasco police spokesman. “We have had some leads, but we need people to continue to call in.”

It was hard for McClintock to keep his composure as he thought about his attackers. Tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

It isn’t the brain injury or what the suspects did that gets the Pasco man upset. It’s the pain and suffering they caused his family that makes him emotional.

“I do think about them ... ,” McClintock said of his attackers. “My life isn’t necessarily messed up. But they were close to messing up my life, or my wife’s life, or my parents’ life.”

But McClintock doesn’t harbor much anger toward his attackers. He chooses instead to focus on the positives in his life and how lucky he is to to be alive.

“I praise God every day I’m here,” he said.

This story was originally published January 31, 2016 at 10:03 PM with the headline "Injured Pasco longboarder reflects on attack, recovery (with video)."