Pit Crews for Kids making a difference with ill children

DURHAM, N.C. -- Mateo, a 10-year-old boy from Ecuador who possesses a 1,000-watt smile, unwittingly used this gift to light up the cramped room that currently comprises his whole world.

With his sister, Domenica, at his side and his parents looking on from the foot of his bed at Duke University Medical Center, Mateo simply could not believe his good fortune. The gang from Pit Crews for Kids was in the house, and they had just handed over a present. He tore into the bag with a gusto matched only by his good humor, and grinned even more broadly after he ripped off the wrapping paper in record time and stared at what now rested in his small hands.

"I am not believing this!" he said, caressing the box that contained a Speed Racer Lego set. "Thank you SO much!"

Three days away from a bone marrow transplant that he and his family prayed would restore order and resiliency to his ravaged immune system, Mateo, strangely, was the one lifting the spirits of everyone in his presence. But then, that's often what happens when the Pit Crews for Kids visit these seriously and frequently terminally ill children.

"You know, we think we're doing something for them. But we're the ones who get blessed," said Courtney Hurd, who along with her husband, Caleb, founded Pit Crews for Kids in 2003 and began spreading gifts and good will in the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at Duke. "We think, 'Oh, we're going to visit the hospital and see the kids and give them something.' But we always take away far more than we give. Always."

A great idea

Caleb Hurd (left) helps 10-year-old patient Mateo open a gift while Bobby Turner (right) and Mateo?s sister, Domenica, look on.

Courtney was hired in 2001 by Hendrick Motorsports to serve as a coordinator with the Hendrick Marrow Program, which assists patients and their families in a wide variety of ways -- from paying late rent to arranging transplants. Caleb, who serves as the gas man on the pit crew of the No. 24 Cup Series car driven by Jeff Gordon in his day job, worked with her to help get Pit Crews for Kids off the ground a little more than a year later.

The idea was simple: Caleb Hurd and two or three other members of NASCAR pit crews would donate time and whatever money they could to travel to the Duke hospital four times a year in an attempt to deliver good times. Yet it sounds easier than it actually is. Sprint Cup pit crew members typically get one day off a week -- Saturday -- and usually like to sleep in since they're often up before daylight the next morning to fly out on a team plane to yet another race. Arriving at Duke -- a drive of more than two hours from most of their homes in and around Charlotte, N.C. -- requires rising early on that day off and embarking on a trip that won't return them home until early evening.

"It's always tough when that alarm goes off," Caleb said. "But then, once you get to the hospital and start visiting with the kids, you forget all about that and you know it's worth it."

Courtney coordinates it all down to the tiniest detail. She remembers when she knew this was what she was destined to do. Her first year of working at Hendrick, she met some patients and their families at a hospital in Charlotte.

"I met two kids -- and they got in my heart. I was just like, 'This is amazing,'" she said. "So one of the guys from another pit crew said, 'Let's go visit your kids.' First we went to a hospital in Charlotte, which was great. But that's not the population we serve. These are the kids that we serve [at Duke].

"So we were like, 'Let's try it one time. It's two hours away.' So we came up, had a ball, and fell in love with it. That was in 2002. We've been coming back ever since."

Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports who has battled leukemia himself, has taken notice of what they have been able to accomplish.

"Let me tell you, I'm so proud of those guys. They don't get the credit they deserve for that," Hendrick said. "They don't get many days off. But they go up there, and I get letters from those folks telling me they mean so much to those kids. Some of those kids are so terminally ill that they'll never get to leave the hospital.

"They just do a super job. And you know what? They've never even asked me for anything. I try to help 'em pay for things and give them vehicles to go up there in, but they really do this totally on their own. I'm as proud of that as I am of anything we've ever accomplished in racing."

Hendrick calls Courtney "a little ball of energy" who gets things done and knows everyone at the Duke Medical Center.

"I could call up there and ask them something and they would put me on hold. But if I mention Courtney's name, I go right to the top and could probably get anything I want there," Hendrick said.

"The letters I get from the families telling me how much they appreciate their visits are just incredible. You hear from family members who are really touched. The guys know what these patients and their families are going through, and what they're doing is a great deal."

Bobby Turner holds Marcus, a 4-week-old patient who went straight to the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit after being born on another floor at the Duke hospital.

Joining the Hurds on this particular day are Wayne Holden, the pit-crew coach for the No. 66 and No. 70 teams of Hass/CNC Racing; Bobby Turner, a design engineer for Petty Enterprises; Kellie Dixon, a public relations assistant at Hendrick Motorsports; and Tricia Kriger, director of the Jeff Gordon Foundation. All are regulars when it comes to making the trips to Duke, and they frequently are joined by Jason Hunt, jackman for the No. 5 team at Hendrick. Others who have made trips include Jeff Kerr, jackman for the No. 1 Cup team; and Drew Beason, who works on the setup plate for Gordon's No. 24 machine.

During the drive from Charlotte to Durham, Courtney's plans for a nap are constantly being interrupted. Finally, she taps Kriger on the shoulder and asks, "Is there a talking Elmo in one of your bags?"

Kriger makes small talk about some of the kids they've visited in the past and those she hopes to see soon, and also mentions Jeff Gordon's little-known passion for Rock Band, the interactive video game. It's impressive when she also notes that no one in the history of the Make-A-Wish Foundation has made more wishes become reality for ill children than Gordon, who has made more than 200 such dreams come true. Kriger says that Hulk Hogan is the only other Make-A-Wish participant even close, with Hogan and Gordon being the only two celebrities in the history of the program with more than 200 to their credit.

But this trip is not about the headliner celebrities. It's about a group of pit-crew regulars and those such as Kriger, Dixon and Courtney who willingly give of their free time to try to help others.

"The kids don't care that these guys are not drivers. They think these guys are rock stars," Courtney said. "People are like, 'Well, why don't you bring a driver?' And I'm like, 'Because that would take away from what these guys are doing. And the kids don't care.' They think it's very cool that these pit-crew guys who will be on TV working on the cars at the race tomorrow are in their rooms, visiting with them, today."

Upon arriving at Duke University Medical Center, the first task is to unload the van. It is packed with bags of toys and clothes and all kinds of gifts that are separated into individual bags, each with a patient's name on it.

When they made their very first visit, Courtney brought the same gift for everyone -- but she quickly realized that in a 16-bed unit which accepts patients who range in age from newborns to 25-year-olds (as long as their treatment began before they were 18), one size doesn't fit all. So now before each visit, Courtney calls up the social workers who are daily visitors to the unit to find out who is currently filling the beds and what tastes they have -- that is, if Courtney doesn't know the information already.

"We can only predict so much," she said. "These kids, their health is really in a precarious situation. Some kids get well quicker than they thought they would, and they get discharged before we get here. Some kids have a setback and they're admitted before we get here without us knowing it. So sometimes it's sort of a guessing game as to who is actually going to be here when we get here.

"I had the surprise last night of learning five new people were going to be here when we got here today, so I had to head to Target."

One child wanted a gray watch "like Bob the Builder wears." Courtney laughed and said, "I'm not even sure Bob the Builder wears a watch. I watched some episodes and I couldn't see it." But she eventually found something that would do. Another child wanted a Nancy Drew book, sending Courtney into a frenzy to find out which books from which Nancy Drew series (apparently there are several) would best suit the young girl's desires.

Caleb Hurd (front) and Bobby Turner make laps with twins on the fifth floor of the Duke University Medical Center, which houses the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.

After the gift bags are sorted according to each patient's room number, the crew has to stop in sort of a holding room "to become as germ-free as possible" before entering the fifth-floor ward the sick children call home for as long as they are in the hospital's minute-by-minute care. The lucky ones and their families eventually get to graduate to an apartment "within a 10-minute drive" of the hospital, where they live for two to three months and hopefully don't ever get readmitted. Then, the really lucky ones finally get to go home.

But for now, the 16-bed unit with its cramped but efficient play room and common area (complete with washer-dryer unit and an extremely small kitchen and dining area) is home. Depending on the severity of the damage to their immune systems, some children, such as Mateo, can't even enjoy the play room and common area; they are confined to their rooms, and visitors can enter only after donning gowns, plastic gloves and sometimes even facemasks.

"That to me is the key," Courtney said. "We get to leave. This is their home. The children can't leave because their immune systems have been compromised. So from the day they arrive until the day when their immune systems hopefully reach a level where it's safe for them to be in the outside world, they can't leave this hallway. This is their bedroom, their family room, their play room. This is it.

"And so it's special to me that they allow us in, because we really are coming into their homes and visiting with them. They continually welcome us."

The first stop on this day is in the hallway, where the eyes of 2-year-old twins, Hunter and Trey, beam at the sight of Caleb and Turner. Caleb and Turner soon are taking turns pushing the pair down the hallway in plastic cars. Pit stops are optional.

Wayne Holden tip-toes into the room of Logan, another very young patient who recently underwent a cord blood cell transplant to try to combat Hurler's Syndrome, which destroys immune systems. Word is that the visitors need to be quiet because Logan is about to take a nap, but then Holden pulls Logan's gift out of the bag and that idea goes out the window.

Talking Elmo has struck again.

As the morning stretches into the afternoon, visits to other patients take place and more gift bags are delivered in private rooms and in the common area, where a Wii gaming system and 37-inch flat-screen television donated by the Hurds and their friends appear to be in frequent use.

At one point, the room is packed with four boys and their parents, Mike and Dana Hardee. Their next-to-youngest boy, Drake, who is 3, was one of the late additions to the unit for this Pit Crew visit when an infection brought him back after he had been discharged.

To make the two-hour drive to Durham from Greenville, N.C., basically on a moment's notice when his son started experiencing problems, Mike Hardee had to cancel plans "to finally get caught up" on a side job and with work around the house on what was supposed to be a long weekend off. But he shrugged and said, "You do what you have to do for the health of your child." He said all the kids on the fifth floor at Duke look forward to the special days when they know the Pit Crews for Kids are coming.

"It makes them seem important," he said. "They miss out on so much, being here. This is one thing where they can talk to their friends and say, 'Look what I got to do that no one else [on the outside] got to do.'"

Dana Hardee sees Drake playing with several of the toys he received and smiled as she added: "He rarely complains. He's a lot tougher than the rest of us."

The final touch

Young patient Hannan looks on curiously as Bobby Turner (left) and Caleb Hurd attempt to figure out how Hannan?s new toy helicopter works.

As Caleb bounces from room to room, he takes note at how upbeat most of the kids and their families are -- despite the obviously difficult circumstances they find themselves in.

"I think the kids enjoy the fact that somebody is here to do something with them besides stick another needle in their arm," he said.

He added that not everyone is as happy to see them as Mateo, and that not every visit is as pleasant as this one, for the most part, appears to be. Turner agreed.

"We don't get many Mateos," Turner said. "But when we do, it's refreshing."

Caleb nodded and added: "One time when we came, everyone seemed to be sick. Every room we went into, buzzers were going off and doctors were running in. It was really pretty depressing. I'd rather have it like this. We all would."

One of the children he and Turner visit is Marcus, who is only four weeks old and came to the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit immediately after being born on another floor of the hospital. Another is Hannan, whose family is from Pakistan. Hannan says little -- but lights up when Caleb presents him with a toy police helicopter that does the same.

Of course this is only after it takes Caleb and Turner several minutes to figure out how to get the helicopter out of the box, and several more to figure out how the toy works.

"This is sort of what it's like on a pit stop when we're trying to figure out how to get Jeff's car to go faster," Caleb joked.

After leaving Hannan's room, Caleb and Turner wonder aloud if they really reached the boy. Then Dixon follows them out and delivers welcome news from Hannan's parents, telling them Hannan had been "really having a couple of tough days" and that even though he only uttered a few words during their visit it was the first time he had talked at all in two days. That revelation represented another small victory.

A few minutes later, Holden -- who earlier spent the better part of a half-hour discussing the intricacies of a pit stop with Mike Hardee -- is interrupted again by another parent who makes a point of telling him how much the visit by Pit Crews for Kids is appreciated.

"Sometimes we hear we're the talk of the ward for weeks after," said Holden, grinning himself at the thought. "One time we heard that the comedian Jeff Foxworthy, who gives a ton of money to this hospital, was up here visiting a week before us. I mean, he's a big TV star and everything.

"But there was a 14-year-old girl and supposedly Foxworthy couldn't get any reaction at all out of her. She didn't bat an eye. But when she heard we were coming, she told her parents she wanted to put on a new shirt. She wore a wig and everything for us, and couldn't stop smiling."

As the visit winds down, Kriger pops in for a few more minutes with the infamous Mateo. Earlier, Mateo pressed Caleb for a phone number -- so he could call him when he gets out of the hospital. Mateo wants to help Caleb and Turner build a Speed Racer car "big enough for two" so he can take his sister along for rides. Turner fashions a hat from the wrapping paper Mateo has discarded -- but when it promptly falls off, Mateo, in mock surprise, shouts out: "What?! I'm bald?"

When Caleb and Turner head for the door to leave, Mateo is still smiling and talking.

"My friends will be so jealous."

Then, in a more serious tone, he added: "I will be praying for you guys to stay safe at the track."

This from a 10-year-old who is to undergo bone-marrow transplant surgery in 72 hours. The good news is that Mateo made it through to fight another day. Some of the patients who are visited do not.

"The first time a patient died, I felt really guilty -- because I brought these boys into it, and then I had to go tell them somebody didn't make it," Courtney said. "And it was really hard. I think we, together, had to just work through what that really means.

"And for me, I have a superhero complex. I want to save them all. I actually thought about quitting my job and going back to school and becoming an oncology doctor. Caleb said to me, 'If that's what you want to do, that's fine. But these people have years of experience on you.' He was like, 'Let them do what they do, and you keep doing what you do.'

"So I had to resolve that our job here is really just to make a difference for today. And if that means for five minutes that kid's not thinking about tubes and tests and doctors and 'I'm sick, and missing home and can't go outside' -- if for five minutes they forget about all that and we get a smile -- then we really did our job. That's what we're all about."