Retired fighter Troy Mandaloniz experiences life-altering accident
At first, the doctors weren’t sure Troy Mandaloniz would make it. He would spend the next 66 days in the hospital, in and out of a medically induced coma in Oahu.
Troy Mandaloniz Go Fund Me page…
Hawaii’s Troy Mandaloniz is a former UFC fighter, current MMA coach, and does property management. Despite the dangers of our sport, it was his day job that nearly killed him. He climbed up a ladder to check bird damage on a home, and fell 18 feet.
Chuck Mindenhall has the story.
“After the fall I kind of went strolling around the property,” Mandaloniz says. “The area where the vacation home is in, it’s real barren. There’s hardly anybody around, and I was lucky to have run into two guys who were working on screens, and they saw me and said, ‘Man, you’re messed up, you need to go to the hospital.’ One guy told me he would drive me in my car. I jumped in my car, took a selfie of myself to send to my wife, and told her, ‘Hey, I just fell off a ladder, that I’m pretty messed up and need to go to the hospital.’”
That’s his last recollection of the episode.
“I guess I started going into convulsions in the car on the way to the hospital, so the dude stopped at the fire station where they put me in the ambulance, took me to the hospital, and they pretty much immediately flew me to Oahu on this thing called Life Flight.
At first, the doctors weren’t sure Mandaloniz would make it. He would spend the next 66 days in the hospital, in and out of a medically induced coma in Oahu. There was bleeding on his brain. He suffered a fracture to his forehead, and his orbital bone. His cheekbone was broken, and so was his nose. He lost his sense of smell, maybe forever. Two ribs were snapped, his kneecap was busted. And his right arm — his power arm as a fighter — was mangled. He may never regain use of his right hand again.
He’s had a dozen surgeries on his right arm. His forearm is an open wound, with exposed tendon.
“They are using this stem cell technology with this placenta they put over the tendon to try to get more red tissue to grow,” he says. “It’s been successful, but it’s slow as molasses.”
In the meantime, his medical bills are surmounting. The air ambulance alone that took him to Honolulu cost more than $60,000. His family has set up a Go Fund Me page to help offset the costs. So far it has raised a little over $16,000. He has a legal team working on his behalf, but is uncertain where that will lead. In the meantime, he’s been diagnosed with clinical depression, though he tries to be upbeat for his wife and children. He holds out hope that he can still be involved in MMA, that he can still be useful, but the truth is he doesn’t know.
“I can’t play music anymore,” he says solemnly, referring to his ukulele that he played for hours a day. Then he breaks up. He begins to cry.
“I can’t put my daughter’s hair up anymore. It’s been miserable, man. I had a big goal at B.J.’s gym, and they had big plans of opening another gym on the Westside of our island. And the plan was for me to go over and run the MMA department over there. I think that might be in jeopardy now.”
But right now amputation is not in his vocabulary.
It’s hard to hear Mandaloniz cope with his situation. His biggest fear upon losing the use of his hand, other than the little everyday things that we take for granted, is that he will have lost his jiu-jitsu grip forever.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do professionally as a one-handed man now,” he says. “I’m really hoping I can get my hand in some focus mitts. Personally I believe I was one of the best MMA coaches in the state, man.”
Troy Mandaloniz Go Fund Me page…
According to the CDC, falls remain a leading cause of unintentional injury mortality nationwide, and 43% of fatal falls in the last decade have involved a ladder.
