CARLISLE — The first pitch of the Carlisle High School baseball team’s game against Oskaloosa on Tuesday is just minutes away at the Bob James Memorial Baseball Complex as Lori Malek grabs a seat in the bleachers. Malek is with her husband and eagerly awaiting the game. 

Her son, Jake Uhlman, is a senior pitcher for the Wildcats and making his first start of the season on senior night.

“I’m so flustered right now,” Malek said.

It’s a big night. It’s a nerve-racking night. It’s a night she has been looking forward to for a long time. And it’s a night that nearly didn’t happen.

Back in March, her son was accidentally shot in the chest with a nail gun during his building trades class. Back then, she was just worried he would survive. Jake playing baseball again didn't even register.  

“It’s surreal actually,” Malek said, "after they tell you that your child isn’t going to make it." 

Uhlman not only survived but defied incredible odds. Doctors told him that his senior season was over before it even began. That recovery from open heart surgery would wipe away his whole year. But Uhlman was determined to get back on the field someway, somehow this year. Even if it did come during the final regular season home game for the Wildcats this season.

Something was better than nothing.

“I was about dead,” Uhlman said. “So, it means a lot that I’m still here and I’m pitching.”

The 2022 season was going to be a big one for Uhlman. 

The right-hander was a senior for the Wildcats, hoping to have a breakthrough season. He'd already bought his time and logged a few innings the previous season out of the bullpen for Carlisle's varsity team. Uhlman, who had spent most of the year on the junior varsity squad, was hoping to pitch primarily on Carlisle's varsity team as a senior.

He put in the work.

Uhlman worked with Mitch Wylie, a retired pro pitcher who was selected in the eighth round of the 1998 draft by the Chicago White Sox. Uhlman showed up to all of Carlisle's off-season workouts, even after wrestling team practices and meets. He looked sharp in his bullpen sessions as well and had the best strike percentage in the workouts leading up to the season.

Carlisle coach Blake Heitmeier had big plans for Uhlman. 

"We envisioned him as a senior to be one of our key contributors either as a starter or out of the bullpen," Heitmeier said. 

But so much changed on March 31.

He was in his building trades class that day putting a piece of trim on a pantry when a classmate and friend of Uhlman's walked up to him and began messing around. Uhlman, who had a nail gun in his hand, set it down. His friend picked it up and jokingly pointed it him and walked toward him. 

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"I was walking backwards while he walked towards me and then I stopped and when he took a step close, it pressed into my chest and it just shot me," Uhlman said. 

The nail was so thin that Uhlman didn't even realize it had hit him at first. In fact, he figured it hadn't even fired. But when Uhlman started feeling chest pains, like something had been dropped on him, he realized something was wrong.

When he lifted up his white shirt, he saw a small hole in his chest with some blood oozing out.

Uhlman, along with his friend, went over to their teacher Matt Hesse and told him what happened. Uhlman pulled up his shirt to his teacher and showed the wound, located on the right side of his chest. 

"It was pretty obvious that it was in an area of vital organs," said Carlie baseball player Chris Holland, who was in the classroom. 

Hesse called 911. An ambulance came to the school in a couple of minutes and picked Uhlman up. Malek who was working her job as a pharmacist, got a call from Hesse explaining what happened. She started screaming and was so distraught, a co-worker gave her a ride to the hospital. On the way there, she called her husband and her ex-husband, Uhlman's dad.

Uhlman, meanwhile, was in the ambulance. He was sweating and suffering even more chest pain. But he didn't realize how bad it was. 

"I was just in there thinking, 'Oh, they're just going to get it out and I'll be good," Uhlman said. 

When Uhlman arrived at the hospital, doctors took x-rays and discovered the nail had entered his coronary artery and was poking his heart. Uhlman said it ricocheted off his breastbone. He was on the verge of bleeding out. They'd have to remove it immediately. Uhlman's chest was filling with blood. But removing it could cause a disastrous outcome — doctors feared by pulling it out could cause the boy to bleed to death. 

They were so worried they told Malek to come into the room before his operation to say her goodbyes. So, only a few minutes after Uhlman arrived at the hospital, Malek went into the room preparing for the worst. Uhlman's dad and Malek's husband held the traumatized mother up as she spoke to her son. 

"I kept telling him I would see him when he got out of surgery and that I loved him," Malek said. "That's all I could tell him." 

Uhlman was still conscious. He told his mother about all the pain he was in and how it he was having trouble breathing. Uhlman was quickly taken away to undergo surgery immediately. Doctors cracked open his chest and performed open heart surgery on Uhlman for three and a half hours. His family sat through the operation wondering if he would make it.

It wasn't until Uhlman woke up from the surgery that he learned just how scary the situation was. He had a brush with death and survived it after the doctors operated on him and removed the nail.

It was a millimeter short of piercing his heart and killing him instantly. 

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Uhlman did get bad news, though. 

Doctors told him he wouldn't be able to play baseball this summer. Uhlman would need at least three months to recovery. Even after that, he may not be ready for his senior season. 

At the very least, Uhlman would miss most of the season. Likely all of it. 

"I was pretty bummed," Uhlman said. 

Even though doctors didn't think Uhlman could make it back, he had little doubt he would. 

After his three-day stint in the hospital, he began plotting a return to the diamond. It wouldn't be easy though. Just opening the refrigerator was difficult for Uhlman when he first got home. The amount of energy he needed to swing a bat or throw a ball would be much more than that. For the first two months, doctors ordered him to not even lift 10 pounds. By the third month, he could only lift up to 25 pounds. To top things off, he couldn't swing a bat or throw. 

"I (had) worked so hard and it was all taken from me," Uhlman said. 

He still had an impact on the team. Uhlman sat in the dugout and charted pitches so his coaching staff could find ways to attack opposing hitters. He cheered on his teammates and became an unofficial coach himself.

But it wasn't enough. Uhlman wanted to play.

Whenever Heitmeier looked down in the dugout during practice or games, Uhlman always had a glove or a bat in his hands. 

"He was kind of chomping at the bit," Heitmeier said. 

Uhlman took his time though. He did light tossing about six weeks after his surgery. But as soon as the three month mark hit, he was back at practice, the first one there. Uhlman started getting some swings in, took some ground balls and threw a bullpen. 

Heitmeier said his return provided a big boost to the team. 

"It made a lot of guys realize how lucky they are to play ball and to have him around," he said. 

They weren't the only lucky ones. Heitmeier, knowing how hard Uhlman had worked during the off-season and what a good season he could have had, wanted to reward his pitcher.

So ahead of the team's senior night this week, he handed him the ball as that night's starting pitcher. 

His mom and step-dad recorded every move he made on the mound and at the plate. He struck out the first batter he faced. 

"I was just happy to be out there," Uhlman said. 

The game only lasted until the bottom of the third. When a storm ripped through Carlisle, the game was called. But it didn't matter, really. 

And he was back on the field. 

Nothing could rain on his day. 

"It makes a mom's heart proud for sure," Malek said. 

Carlisle's season ended Friday with a 9-8 substate loss to Newton.

Tommy Birch, the Register's sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He's the 2018 and 2020 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at tbirch@dmreg.com or 515-284-8468. Follow him on Twitter @TommyBirch.