My personal story about multiple trauma, near death experiences, and PTSD. (If there is anything I can do to help other survivors, let me know!)
It was late August in 1982, and the San Bernardino County Fair was in full swing. The night was warm, the crowd electric in anticipation of the evening’s festivities. As I chased down a few beers, I reflected on how good it was to be alive. I was perfectly content to relax and watch the activities of the evening come to fruition.
I ran into my friends and brothers Floyd and Tracy Thomason, who had come to the fair that evening with George and Russ, who were also from Lucerne Valley. We drank a few more beers and eventually met four young ladies who lived in Apple Valley. They were happy to have us escort them throughout the fairgrounds. As the night progressed, we drank a few more beers to chase down the ones from earlier.. Eventually, we all came to the conclusion that we should retire to the Ranch in Lucerne for the remainder of the evening. Once the nine of us had arrived at the Ranch we became better acquainted with the ladies we had brought along with us. Tracy and I were kindred spirits when it came to the consumption of hard liquor, and this evening was no different. We split a fifth of Jim Beam for old times’ sake.
We had promised to return the young ladies back to Apple Valley, but all the gas stations in town had long since closed for the evening. Eager to get on with the task at hand, the nine of us piled into Floyd’s early 1950s era Chevy Apache pick-up truck and began coasting into town. I stood on the step side of the pickup truck as we drove down the highway. About halfway down the hill from the Ranch we ran out of gas, and that’s the honest truth.
We began our long walk back up the hill toward the ranch, and time for idle conversation had come to an end. There were five of us along with the four young ladies. One of us was going to be the lonely dog for the evening. I considered returning to Apple Valley before the trouble started, but only for a brief moment. As we were walking up Highway 18 toward the Ranch, Ladd Partin pulled up alongside us with a couple of ladies of his own in tow. One of them had forgotten her purse at Kaiser Permanente, and they were driving up there to retrieve it. Ladd was 21 years old, and at that time he owned a beautiful metallic green 1972 Chevy Chevelle, complete with hood scoop, sidepipes, and bucket seats. One of his female passengers sat beside him and the other one sat in the left rear seat of his impressive looking car.
George and one of the young women quickly jumped into the back seat of the Chevelle. Everyone else jumped up on the hood. As Ladd yelled for everyone to get off the hood of his car, I walked over to the passenger door. George quickly reached over and locked the passenger door, giving me his middle finger.
He then sat back in his seat and laughed tempestuously. George and I had always had problems with each other in some respects. He was a spoiled kid from a modestly affluent family, especially for the confines of Lucerne Valley. He had stable, caring parents whereas I had come out of the dregs of society and had long since accepted my fate.
The problem with George was that he had a tendency to be petulant about it, and that is what created the friction between us. The only sensible thing to do at that point was to become the odd man out and return to Apple Valley. I thought about walking the rest of the way to the Ranch, but the whiskey was in control, and I decided that George and I had to square things up with each other once and for all. I stepped over to the right front fender of the Chevelle and climbed up on to the hood alongside Tracy.
Ladd drove up the highway much faster than anticipated, and I quickly realized that we were in deep trouble. Neither Tracy or I had a way to break our fall once our momentum shifted.
As we entered the bend in the road, Ladd overcorrected and swerved. Tracy and I rolled over our respective quarter panels in an attempt to avoid the momentum of the onrushing car. Tracy was able to roll clear of the Chevelle with only inches to spare.
I was not so lucky. The young lady sitting next to me grabbed me in an attempt to recover my fall. As a result, I was thrown directly in front of the oncoming Chevelle.
My head cracked hard against the pavement as the lower half of my body was collected up underneath Ladd’s car. The low-lying sidepipes of the Chevelle then drug me along the pavement, embedding skin and denim into the highway for approximately 14 feet before I cleared the underside of it. The next morning, investigators from the California Highway Patrol office would testify to that fact. As I lay unconscious on that stretch of desolate highway complete pandemonium ensued. The quiet night in the foothills of Lucerne Valley became utter chaos as I began to scream in agony. This was further punctuated by the hysterical screams of the young ladies who were with us.
Russ overheard the distant whine of a semi barreling down the highway at 70 mph from Kaiser Permanente. He quickly understood the implications of this and dragged me out of the highway by my heels. Unimpeded by our presence, the 18 wheeler blew past, leaving us in the howling blast of its wake. Ladd had left the scene with his two lady friends to report the accident. At 2:37 in the morning, the metallic green Chevelle screeched to a halt in front of the Lucerne Valley Fire Department next to Pioneer Park. He ran inside and notified them that somebody had been hit by a car up on Highway 18 near Geetam. The Lucerne Valley Fire Department responded with prompt and professional efficiency.
One problem: Geetam was two miles downhill from the scene of the accident. We watched helplessly as the fire department scoured the mountainside on the highway below. Miraculously, a lady only known as Mountain 4 drove up to the scene in a green Ford station wagon, and I was quickly thrown into the back of it. Russ jumped into the passenger seat of her vehicle, and as Mountain 4 drove down the mountain toward the rescue vehicles below she began hailing them on her CB radio. The two eventually met up with each other, and I was quickly transferred to the ambulance, which then transported me 16 miles to Saint Mary’s Desert Valley Hospital in Apple Valley.
After arriving at St. Mary’s Desert Valley Hospital, I was transferred over to the care of the emergency room staff on duty that evening. Dr. Thomas, the emergency room physician on duty that night placed a chest tube into the right side of my chest. He visibly paled as bright red blood began gushing into the drainage system below. As I witnessed my own ex-sanguination, the brevity of my mortality was palpable.
When Dr. Su, the surgeon on call, finally arrived I was immediately prepped and rushed to the operating room. While en route to the operating room, I signed consent forms for emergency surgery. It was then that Dr. Su somberly advised me of my chances of survival.
He told me, “I don’t think I can save you, young man! You had better make your peace with God!”
I went into surgery that evening with little hope for survival. I cannot describe what it felt like not having a chance to say goodbye to family or friends. As the anesthesia began to take effect, I barely had time to say a prayer for mercy.
My liver had been lacerated, my spleen and bladder had been ruptured, and the right side of my pelvis had been shattered. The skin on my knees and the palm of my left hand had been ground away, deposited along a stretch of rough asphalt on Highway 18. I tore ligaments in my right shoulder when it dislocated during the accident. To say I was in bad shape would have been an understatement.
After Dr. Su had taken a portion of one lobe of my liver out and stapled the rest of it back together, my blood pressure began to differentiate. The systolic pressure (the higher number) began increasing while the diastolic (the lower number) began decreasing. Suspecting a closed head injury, a call was placed to Loma Linda University Medical Center for emergency transport.
As I was being taken out to the transport helicopter bound for LLUMC, I had just enough time to see all my friends and family, who had gathered in the waiting room.
The transport team told me, “Wave goodbye, because this might be the last time you see them…"
Later, as neurosurgeons were evacuating blood from the brain injury on the left side of my head, they discovered an old head injury caused by the fight I had been in on my 22nd birthday. They evacuated the old dried up blood from it as well. I was given little hope for survival, and if I did, I might likely be in a vegetative state. My family was informed I probably would never be able to walk again. When my mom and Ron arrived in Loma Linda, the surgeons asked them if I had made any organ designations. Ron almost punched them.
I was in a coma for five days, and when I finally awoke I was completely disoriented to time and place. I thought I had passed out at the Country Kitchen in Lucerne Valley. But as the memory of the car accident returned, I realized how close I was to meeting the death that constantly beckoned me.
My head seemed stapled together. In fact, there were so many staples that I unable to actually count them all. The skin of my right middle finger had been peeled away during the accident. After the gravel had been washed out of the open wound, the flap was replaced and sewn back together. Since I had an unstable pelvic fracture, I was placed in a hospital bed with an air mattress — completely new technology at the time.
The pain throughout my body was excruciating. I received so many Demoral shots that my thigh muscles became a mass of rock hard knots. Eventually, the pain medication just oozed back out of the injection sites, so I had to be rolled to my side despite of the pelvic fracture.
I refused to eat for a while because of the pain. Ron was only person that was able to get me to eat. My step-dad had been through a near-death experience as well, and when he looked me in the eye, we had that soul-to-soul connection. He was one of the limited few I trusted at that time in my life.
I was in a two-patient room, and my neighbors kept dying on me. But on Friday evenings, a group of residents on duty would rotate through each wing of the hospital with their acoustic guitars, singing songs to the patients. This brought me an overwhelming sense of peace and calm, and allowed a temporary reprieve to the pain and suffering.
Several weeks went by, and my health slowly began to improve. My injuries began to heal, and I began asking when I could go home. To my dismay I was told, “You’ve got a while yet before that is going to happen.”
Several days later, my temperature began to increase dramatically. I was transported down to CT Scan, where it was discovered that I had developed a massive abscess on the right side of my chest. It was decided that the best course of action was to insert a chest tube to drain it. As surgical tools were pressed against my ribs to insert the chest tube, I felt the resonation of that vibration deep within my body.
Attempts to drain the infection in the right side of my chest were ultimately unsuccessful, and as a result I became very sick. After a couple of days, a surgeon came by my room to speak with me.
“Do you know what it means to be made to lie down in green pastures?”
“What about being led by the still waters?”
The surgeon convinced me that I had to go back under the knife.
I was taken back to the operating room, an incision was made just under my chest muscle from my breastbone and was advanced all the way around the side of my chest. The incision was extended underneath my shoulder blade and all the way around to the middle of my back. Rib spreaders were then used to crack my ribs open so that room could be made to remove the abscess.
I came out of surgery later that day with three chest tubes inserted into the right side of my chest. The pain was overwhelming. Respiratory therapy came by to visit and gave me a strange looking gadget called an Incentive Spirometer. They told me that I had to take deep breaths into it so that the air sacs in my lungs would remain open.
“If you don’t work on your deep breathing, your lungs are going to collapse and you are going to get really sick. You don’t want that to happen, because then we’re really going to have to go to work on you.”
I thought to myself, Why would I want to do something painful like that? I think I’ll just take my chances!
A couple of days later I developed the pneumonia I was warned about.
Respiratory therapy drew an arterial blood gas from my left wrist, and it felt as if the one-inch 22-gauge needle was being shoved all the way through to the other side of my arm. They took a suction catheter, stuck it up my nose, and pushed it down into my lungs to suction out the infection caused by the pneumonia. It felt as if a vacuum hose had been shoved into my lungs. This procedure was repeated several more times throughout the next few days. I began using my Incentive Spirometer faithfully after that.
As I began to recover from the effects of the thoracotomy, the chest tubes were removed. Unfortunately my temperature spiked again soon thereafter. Once again I was transported down to CT Scan, and this time a massive abscess was detected just beneath my diaphragm.
It was decided that the best recourse would be to insert another chest tube. Once it was inserted, the surgeons would push it down through my diaphragm hoping to drain the infection that had formed there. I was completely conscious when this procedure was performed, and I cannot begin to describe the pain.
The procedure proved to be ultimately unsuccessful, and I returned to the operating room for my fourth major surgery. I remained on a mechanical ventilator for a short while afterward.
Back in 1982, mechanical ventilators lacked the high-tech augmentation that they do today. I literally felt as if I was breathing through a straw, and this made me extremely anxious. I was encouraged to relax and breathe normally. (Right)…
I had been cut open two thirds the width of my upper abdomen. The incision was tied together loosely with large rubber tubing, leaving the wound open to drain. Gauze was then stuffed into the open wound to draw out what was left of the infection. It was a hideous process, and I had a front row seat while LLUMC nursing staff performed it.
Pain from my injuries and subsequent surgical procedures was such that the control of it was only marginal at best. Sleeping throughout the night was a luxury. When I did fall asleep, it usually was not until about 4:30 in the morning. I was then awakened by lab technicians at 5:00, surgical rounds at 5:30, nursing rounds at 6:00, and breakfast at 7:30. It was a constant, unforgiving cycle. I gradually became institutionalized as the weeks slowly passed.
I once again began to slowly recover. By late October, I could get on my feet with some assistance. I had been bedridden for eight weeks, and learning to walk again proved to be an extensively difficult process. But as the days rolled by, I grew stronger. Eventually, I was walking without assistance. I then began spending several days a week in rehab attempting to strengthen my right shoulder. Occupational Rehabilitation’s motto of no pain, no gain quickly became a fact of life. But once again, my recovery process was set back when two abscesses were located in the right side of my back.
When I returned to the operating room, I felt very little anxiety about it. It was just something else that needed doing, another task to be performed. But afterward, it became crystal clear that the pain from this surgery was going to be the most excruciating yet. The surgeons had to remove a piece of a rib, and there were two new deep three-inch open wounds in the right side of my back packed wet to dry just like my abdomen.
Every morning the surgeons would arrive to remove the old dressings from in between my ribs and lungs, only to push clean ones back into the cavity. The pain was beyond belief. I am sure my screams could be heard on the other end of the hospital. I quickly learned to forgo any Morphine medication until after the packing, since getting it beforehand did nothing to help alleviate the agony.
After about a week of recovery, I began making my way out to the patio just down the hall from the unit I had come to call home. Eventually, I began taking the elevator down to the front lobby to sit in the lounge chairs and read the magazines. By the third week I began walking around outside. Although it was a painful chore, I would force myself to do this in order to get better.
Finally, one morning I was told, “You know the only thing that is keeping you in the hospital right now is the hep-lock you have in your right arm.”
That was all I needed to hear. The hep-lock came out the next day, and after three days I was free from the more debilitating effects of the Morphine. Arrangements were made for my discharge. I had lost 25 pounds during my hospitalization, dropping to a mere 130. A gastrostomy tube would remain in my stomach for several months afterward.
I was discharged from Loma Linda University Medical Center a few days before Thanksgiving. The right side of my chest and the inside of my right leg would remain numb for about a year, and I would have to deal with a limp for the rest of my life. I was unable to grip anything with my left thumb for a year, and my right shoulder would chronically dislocate at least more 20 times in the next six years. The right side of my diaphragm would remain paralyzed. I would not come to fully realize the extent of my injuries until several years later, when PTSD would repeatedly begin to surface. But I was happy to be going home.
There was one thing for certain about my three-month hospitalization back in 1982: it gave me an avid desire to learn more about the medical field. Whatever fear or apprehension I had about being exposed to blood, guts, brain matter, needles, snot, or poop (well, maybe not the latter) had been eliminated by my own experience with tragedy. Eventually, my curiosity of the medical profession compelled me to enroll once more at Victor Valley College. During the fall semester of 1983, I began by enrolling in an EMT-1A course. I further supplemented this with a standard first aid class.
One of my younger brother’s high school buddies had recently become a respiratory therapist and was doing rather well in his new profession. I ran into him now and then, and on one of those occasions he asked me about my plans for the future. I told him I planned to work for the Bureau of Land Management as a fire fighter during the summer of 1984. I intended on using my EMT license as a bargaining chip to get hired.
“You know,” he said, “you really ought to seriously consider becoming a respiratory therapist.”
In essence, he told me that whereas most health care professionals could at most sympathize with their patients, my chest injuries could allow me to truly empathize with and relate to them. I don’t know how true that really was, but it sure sounded good to me.
“Just think about it,” he told me.
I did, and I thought about it a lot.
As a result, I entered the respiratory therapy program at Victor Valley College in 1986.
As I reviewed the sheer volume of study material required for the respiratory program alone, I wondered how I could possibly keep from failing. I was a poor, skinny, white kid entering into a 20-unit workload of a well-established medical profession. I had hair growing down to the middle of my back and a tooth missing from the fight I had in on my 22nd birthday. I had holes in my shoes. I became ambivalent to the scrutiny to the best of my ability. I worked hard and topped out exam scores frequently.
In June of 1988 I graduated with honors with an Associate in Science degree in Respiratory Therapy. I was also the co-recipient of the Dick Frey Memorial Award that year for outstanding graduating respiratory therapy student at Victor Valley College.
I have been in the respiratory therapy profession now for 28 years. It has been a challenging and rewarding profession, and I believe I can and do make a difference in lives of my patients.
As I have gotten older, I also recognize that the PTSD from my accident is still alive and well in my body, soul, and spirit. It has, in fact, wrecked havoc on my personal life. For that reason, I need to maintain support for myself as much as I wish to give it. That is why I am here today.
If you are facing hardship for whatever reason, I want to encourage you to never give up on your dreams! Stay the course! You may find your path more difficult than most, but the satisfaction of pursuing your vision and achieving your dream will be well worth the price.
“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.” – Psalms 18:16-17 (NIV)
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