It was a bad day

09 Sep It was a bad day

April 18, 1976 was not a great day

It was Easter Weekend and Russ and Nan, and Joan, my fiancée, and I had commuted together up to NJ for the holiday to visit our families.  It was Sunday and after enjoying the weekend and massive Easter lunch, we were returning from our parent’s home back to DC.

The last I recall was having an ice cream cone at the Delaware visitor center.

According to the police report, a vehicle came off of Moravia Road, Baltimore MD at a very high rate of speed and enter on the Baltimore Tunnel Parkway and ploughed the to our vehicle.

The force of the impact caused our vehicle to spin wildly out of control, Joan was ejected out the back window and her body came to landed on the parkway.  The car careened into a jersey wall, jumped it and came to rest in a creek some 10 feet below the parkway, where Russ and Nan escaped and I remained trapped in the car in a pool of gasoline.

I remember my spirit hovering over my body as the EMT’s work feverishly to cut the vehicle open and extract my body from the crumpled vehicle.

In a glowing haze I looked down and watched as the EMT’s  use the jaws of life  to open the car and apply first aid to me.  I felt warm and at peace.  Then a Voice from above said “Son your time has not yet come” and my spirit was re absorbed it to my body, then the pain. The pain was so intense I went into shock.

On the road triage was set up, Russ and Nan sent off to one hospital and Joan and I were taken by helicopter to the Shock-Trauma Hospital Center in Baltimore. There seemed to be a staff of hundreds on hand to address needs and a priest to give us final absolution.

In the ER Joan had expired, but through the grace of God and the skill of the surgeons and hospital staff, she was brought back from the edge of death.

She spent the next twelve hours in surgery as they repaired her shatter femur and stopped internal bleeding.  The difficult decision on whether or not to stop life support was averted as after several days, she began to breathe oh her own.  After 7 months in a coma, she awakened.

I was more fortunate, I fracture the C-3 vertebrae, had severe damage to the orbital on my right eye, lots of broken ribs and other parts as well as chemical burns from sitting in a pool of gasoline from the ruptured fuel tank.  While the surgeons sewed my scalp back on, they were assessing whether or not they could save my eye.  I quipped ‘stick it back in the socket and I will see fine’.  I then was faced with the fear of being paralyzed, told the neurosurgeon I would rather be dead than paralyzed.  I was outfitted with a halo neck brace as the neurologist said the spinal cord was stressed and not severed. I knew I was messed up when my father passed out after just looking at me. I looked as if someone took a baseball bat and beat every inch of my body.

I was less than kind to the priest who gave me final absolution.  I told him to administer it to the other person in the ER.  Little did I know it was Joan. The next morning, he came by with his bible in hand and said, “God is good and he is working on mysterious ways”.  With all the energy I could muster, I screamed back “Look at me I cannot move, my fiancé is on life support how can there be a good God and allow this to happen.” The priest calmly said, “peace be with you”, touched the bed and went on to tend to others.

I apologized to him afterwards saying, had I let him perform the rite, which I believe he did anyway, I might relax and die, but I was not ready to die, just yet.

Fortunately, I recovered and am here today.

Perhaps it was God’s will that I was to adopt and shepherd my son as he grows into adulthood, or care for my spouse as she we age, provide support for my Georgetown colleague as he recovers from heart surgery, or some other task yet to be defined service.

After 40 plus years and as I struggle to this to writing, I am brought to tears as the memories rush back, however. I know one thing for certain, God spoke to me.

Paradoxically, so just perhaps it also was a good day.

Let me end the with a phrase from the Nicene Creed, “We believe in one God…”

Just a thought as I am the dumb Guy.