Bailey continues to run

Andy Bailey planned to take it slow Sunday in his first race with a prosthetic right leg.

It wasn’t about finishing the race. He said he planned to only run a couple hundred yards, but that turned into about a half-mile at the Orange County Track Club Pancake Breakfast 5K, held at Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park.

“I came back very good,” said Bailey, a Laguna Beach resident and Newport Harbor High alumnus.

Most days, the 70-year-old is just happy to be alive. To be running for the first time with the help of a prosthetic limb? Makes sense why he’s so excited.

The 5K benefited the Estancia High cross country and track and field teams. Bailey, an OCTC member, played a part in that as well. Two scholarships in his name will be given to a male runner and a female runner from the Estancia program.

A scholarship in Bailey’s name? That makes sense, too.

He’s become an inspiration for many, persevering after a freak accident a little more than two years ago.

“I’m just happy I didn’t get a brain injury,” he said. “I’m just thankful to be alive. With the prosthetic, I’m up and about.

“I’m so thankful to be able to enjoy life again.”

Bailey remembers the date all too well. It was his day when he came so close to death.

December 12, 2006.

It was a late Monday afternoon and Bailey decided to wash the car, because it needed it after a trip to Arizona.

He saw a van parked to deliver laundry up the way from his home in Laguna Beach and didn’t think much of it.

But minutes later, he saw a runaway van coming his way, the driver yelling and screaming, waving his arms frantically while running just behind it.

The van hit Bailey’s car and the car crashed into his right hip, he said.

“My left hip went against a wall,” he said. “And then I was floating. I somewhat landed on my back. I raised my right leg and it was just dangling there, hanging by a little bit of flesh.”

Doctors seemed positive after surgery — placing a titanium rod near the tibia to hold the leg and fusing the ankle from parts of his other muscles — but the wound became infected.

He was in the hospital for seven weeks before the wound became dirty.

He had to go back again because of a horrible staph infection.

For two years, he battled infections and depression, not to mention the medical bills. His wife, Jeri, supported him and did her best to help with the infections as well.

“Unfortunately the laundry company was under-insured,” Bailey said. “We didn’t get very much money. I had a lot of medical bills.”

There seemed to be a sense of relief later. Some of the pain actually subsided when Bailey’s right leg was amputated below the knee in Feb. 2008.

After that he studied prosthetics and gained help from other amputees who continued to compete.

Bailey wanted to run again, too. He had been a runner since his days at Newport Harbor, and after he competed in triathlons and marathons. As a retired Orange County social worker, he wanted to keep on running. After the freak accident, he never lost that desire.

Huntington Beach’s Jami Goldman, a double amputee, also ran Sunday in the 5K and finished the race. Seeing that can provide motivation and hope for Bailey, even if he said his socket isn’t quite fitting that well yet.

“I had no idea what this thing would feel like,” Bailey said. “There’s no heel , strictly toes. I have one foot landing on the toe, and one foot landing on the heel. My brain is trying to figure out what’s going on with this thing.”

In October Bailey swam with his new prosthetic. Now he’s been training for the 5K with the OCTC and Coach Charlie Appell, who also leads the Estancia program.

Yes, Sunday was important for Bailey, who said he hasn’t decided when his next race might be.

But expect there to be another one, which still says a lot.

— Matt Szabo contributed to this story.