Almost two years after the major motorcycle accident, I was working again. Life was getting back to normal, but I was using a wooden walking cane for my left leg. While driving the forklift at work, my name came over the intercom, calling me to the office.
It was my significant other calling to let me know that my dad had died during the night. I was more than stunned. As I drove back to my parents’ home, it was the longest, emptiest ride of my life. I had just lost my best friend and only confidant.
Everyone in our immediate family gathered there that day. My brothers and I were drowning our sorrows with beer at the kitchen table, totally feeling sorry for ourselves, when our other brother, Pat, walked in.
Finding us so upset, he said to us, “Why don’t we just be grateful for the time we had with him?” That statement made me angry at the time, but I still use it today.
Forward to May 6
Two months later, we were still grieving Dad’s death, as he was our rock and foundation. We were not the only ones suffering; everyone who ever knew him was in pain from his passing. My brothers and I were preparing our mother’s home and property for auction. I had come to Mom’s home that day from work to help our family start the process.
There were few words said by any of us due to the pain of losing our dad.
Then my oldest brother, Bill, reached into his car, pulled out two beers, and handed me one.
My significant other, sitting on the back porch, saw this. She quickly gathered our two five-year-old children and went home to our place as soon as she saw that the drinking had begun.
We got some work started, but we did not slow down our drinking. We had to have another and another for Dad’s sake. In addition, the more we drank, the more painful the feelings became.
As the evening progressed, we decided to go down to the closest bar to play some pool and drown our sorrows.
However, after all the years of drinking together, I had no idea that Bill’s tolerance for alcohol had drastically changed. He could no longer tolerate the amount of alcohol that he used to drink in the past.
Bill, being my oldest brother, insisted on driving that night, so I gave in to his desire to drive.
As midnight approached, while still at the bar, we all decided that it would be a good thing to visit our dad’s grave and pour out a beer upon it.
As we proceeded to the cemetery, our future brother-in-law, Gary, was also with us, and he squeezed into the middle of the front bucket seats.
The last thing I remember seeing with my physical eyes was a nuclear power plant at the end of the road in upstate New York.
My brother made a right turn onto the road along the lake and picked up speed as we went downhill. At the base of the hill was a curve in the road, flanked by a telephone pole.
The front corner of the car hit the inside of the ditch, sending it toward the telephone pole at my passenger door, shearing the pole off near its base.
The car started tumbling end over end and rolled until the little 1969 Datsun crumpled like aluminum foil.
Bill and Gary were both able to get out of the wreck. Bill was unhurt. However, Gary had both ankles broken from the engine that came through the floorboard, which also shattered both of my legs.
Bill and Gary, now out of the car, tried in vain to get me out. Tightly trapped, it took firefighters two hours to free me with the “jaws of life.” What my brother and brother-in-law did not know was that the battery, which had not been secured in the engine compartment, came into the car and broke over my face.
I vaguely remember gargling the battery acid and breathing it in through my nose. I also remember my eyes burning and not being able to wipe them, as my arms were immovable. Obviously, my body was in shock, as I do not remember any of the pain of the acid burning my eyes along with my face.
The battery acid burned me enough to remove the permanent mole that I had on my left cheek, scarring my face for quite some time. I later learned from the ambulance crew that the doctor in charge of ambulance inventory had ordered no saline solution for the town’s ambulance. Thus, my eyes did not receive any treatment until I reached the emergency room over two hours later.
In addition to the damage to my eyes and the burns on my face from battery acid, both legs were shattered below the knees, and my hip socket had sheared off.
One thing I clearly remember from the night of the accident: my orthopedic doctor, thinking my hip was out of joint, repeatedly pulled on my leg as hard as he could, trying to slip it back into place. I screamed with every attempt.
The doctor finally ordered X-rays and discovered that my hip had sheared off from the accident. At the first opportunity, he operated and repaired my hip with screws. He then placed casts on both legs without setting them due to my severe eye damage.
When I came to and tried to grasp what had happened, I had extraordinarily little vision, both of my legs were in traction, and I had just undergone hip surgery.
My brother Bill walked into my room and said, “Dan, I don’t know what to say.”
What I said next came out without hesitation, and I was not expecting it. I said, “Bill, this isn’t your fault; this is alcoholism, so don’t worry about it.”
I know that this statement did not take hold in his life, as he suffered with guilt up until his death twenty-seven years later.
The next statement he made went straight to my heart.
“Dan, I just talked to one of the doctors, and I am going to give you one of my eyes.”
I immediately said, “Bill, you can’t do that; please don’t worry about it.” I could not imagine my brother going blind because of an accident if I had been the one driving. I have always loved my brother Bill deeply, and I have carried empathy for him ever since that night.
The ophthalmologist placed a layer of quick-hardening, lumpy glue on the damaged surface of my eyeballs in an attempt to stop the leakage of vitreous fluid. This glue needed to remain for a month to promote healing.
This was one of the most painful months of my life, with extraordinary pain with every blink.
A Different Perspective
My ex-wife has been through a great deal in life and played a significant role in my recovery, for which I am grateful. Here is her perspective of what happened on the day of the accident, as she described it to me. She called it a tragedy.
She said, “I remember sitting on the back porch watching Dan and his brother clean up their mother’s backyard.
I could tell they were not enjoying it very much, and I remember watching his brother go to his car to get something. When he turned around, he had two bottles of beer.
Right then, I knew that once the drinking started, it was going to last most of the night. I decided it was time to take our small children home.”
Then she said, “The phone rang around 2 A.M., and it was Gail,” Bill’s wife.
Gail said, “The guys have been in a car accident. I will be right there to pick you up. Have the kids ready. We’ll drop them off at Mom’s.”
Then Ann said, “My first feeling was anger. How could he do this to us again? We had all been through this just two years ago when he was in a motorcycle accident. He had been drinking then, too.”
She told me she cried her heart out for me and had no tears left—this time.
She described the hospital scene:
“The emergency room was not very busy that night. Dan was there somewhere, but I was not allowed to see him until the doctors finished examining him.
I remember his brother Bill pacing back and forth in shock. Everyone tried to explain what they thought had happened, but no one was sure—only that they missed a curve, hit a telephone pole, and ended upside down.
Dan’s face was in the windshield, and battery acid had poured down his face into his eyes. They did not know if he would ever see again.
I remember walking to the far end of the emergency room. There were nurses and doctors everywhere. Each time I passed a cubicle, I looked to see if it was Dan.
It wasn’t until I reached the very end that I saw him lying on a bed, rolling in shock. I was grateful he was not fully aware of the pain his body was in.
Then I moved closer to see his eyes. I will never forget them. They were gray and foamy. The whites were no longer white. The green pupils were gone. I just saw gray where his eyes used to be.
In time, the doctors repaired his hip and legs, although they never healed as they once were.
The next day, his eyes began to leak fluid, and a specialist applied glue. I remember how strange it seemed to use glue on someone’s eyes. This was only the beginning of many attempts to save his sight, all of which failed.”
I do not blame Ann for her feelings in this account, as she has been through so much in life. Nevertheless, I am deeply grateful for her sacrifice in caring for my son and me. Even though we could no longer live together, I consider her one of my teachers and an angel in this part of my life.
So, thank you, Ann.