Words of Wisdom

Originally Posted 8/21/06

I was trying to decide what to write about today when I realized what time of the month it is. Lately, as we’ve been planning our 10 year class reunion, there’s been a lot of reminiscing about our good ‘ol days at Beebe High, so bear with me for a little bit.

In August of ‘95 I was getting ready to start my Senior year back in the “Dream Hometown.” I was a smart, relatively athletic, popular kid that cruised through my classes with a bit of arrogance toward the others around me. Like most teenagers, I was not always a very nice guy, but the world revolved around me so it didn’t really matter.

Then, on the first day of that school year, my outlook on life was forever changed.

That evening, myself and three friends loaded up in my ugly yellow 1985 Toyota 4-Runner to go see a high school scrimmage game between one of our conference opponents (Vilonia) and the school where my girlfriend at the time was cheerleading (Harding Academy). It was a short drive through some rural Arkansas country – past Turkey “Mountain” where our crew liked to hang out – when our trip abruptly ended in the metropolis of ElPaso…

There is only one intersection in the El Paso community – Highways 5 and 31 – and, at that time, it consisted of a two-way stop. When driving down highway 31, which we were doing, you didn’t have to stop.

So there we were, a bunch of guys from a little country town, listening Hank Williams Jr. and singing outloud with a mouthful of Levi Garrett without a care in the world.

Nobody (especially me) has a clear memory of what happens next – what we do know was told to us later by other friends that were driving behind us. For some reason, this was the day that the driver of a big, 18-wheeler truck decided to run through the lone El Paso stop sign. My truck was crushed like an aluminum can in the accident.

People who arrived at the scene described the scene to the four of us involved later. Two of the guys, Brian and Steven, were up and walking around – I believe one of them had to have a few stitches. Joey had some major facial injuries that had to be fixed with surgery (and the poor guy wasn’t all that good-looking to begin with). I was left slumped in the front seat of the truck, unconscious, where the roof was smashed in on my head.

Fortunately, there was a doctor – who was also going to the game – in one of the cars behind us that stopped to help until the ambulances arrived. If it wasn’t for his help, I probably wouldn’t be writing this for you today – he explained the severity of my injuries to the emergency personnel who then rushed me to Baptist hospital in Little Rock for the best care possible in the fight for my life.

I’m told that the waiting room was packed full of people that night waiting to hear news of my condition and I’ve also been told that the initial prognosis was not good. Because I was not wearing a seatbelt, I avoided suffering a broken neck, but the head injuries were serious enough to be life-threatening. After a week of living in the ICU deep in a coma, in which I said some things that people will never let me forget, I started to come around.

Once I was awake, the rehab began. At the age of 17, I was having to relearn everything – from how to walk to doing simple math. I was moved to a hospital that specialized in rehabilitation – where I was by far the youngest patient – and that was where I spent most of the next month of my life. I don’t remember a lot of the months that I spent in both in-patient and out-patient at this hospital. There are memory flashes of walking, with help, through the parking lot, of doing little puzzle games like the ones we give to Rachel, and of the loving support from friends and family. I remember listening to the Beebe football games on the radio and hearing Russ Lindsey talk about me being in the hospital. I remember the terrible hospital food (I lost 20 lbs in a month) and my eagerness to get back to normal.

The next few years were a time of major adjustments for me. I was able to finish high school on time, but I dropped from first in the class rankings to third. My athletic career was over because of a complete lack of coordination (walking a straight line was tough enough!). My capacity for remembering was nearly nonexistent, and it has only really begun to improve in the last three or four years. All of sudden, after years of breezing through classes, school and learning had become difficult for me. I was forced to learn to study and, even then, my grades were not near the perfect A’s I had made before with little effort. My self-confidence went from arrogance to nearly nothing. The lack of confidence and diminished ability brought on numerous bouts of depression and subsequent apathy to everything.

Though times were tough for a while, it all eventually faded away. While I have recovered over the years, I’ll never be back to where I once was – and that’s ok. For years, it was hard to for me to understand why this had happened – I blamed God and everyone else for my problems, but then something happened and I’m not sure what it was.

As I reflected on my experiences, I began to realize just how important they were for me to become the person I am today and the person that I will be in the future. Even if I could change it, I don’t think I would go back in time and decide to stay home from that ill-fated trip. If anything, my struggles in the years after the accident helped me to realize the importance of relying on others and on God.