60 Years Paralyzed and Grateful for Another Day

At first all I saw through the rainy windshield were two legs — no body attached — moving on to the winding road in an easy jog. I slammed on my brakes, pulling hard to the right, fearful I would crash into the drainage ditch. His 20-something face turned and froze. Terrified, wearing headphones, a dark shirt and no reflective clothing at all, he realized I was going to hit him. There was no crosswalk, no intersection and no earthly reason to try to run across a 45-mph curvy country road at 7:30 a.m. on a dark wintry day. The rest was up to God, fate, or blind luck. We were both trapped. No way out.

I say “we” because I felt as much a victim as he must have. I was on my way to a wound care clinic after a large, growing sore on my right calf was diagnosed as a rare autoimmune condition. I’d been bedbound for an entire year — as if 60 years of paraplegia was not enough — completely immobile for the first six months with a scrotal wound where an abscess had been removed. Then came this disease that the doctor described as “white blood cells gone haywire.” I had lost the ability to transfer into my unadapted minivan and drive because of aging, diminished lung capacity and fading strength. Rolling up a short ramp had become an exhausting marathon.

Medical bills were piling up and my future looked scary. Despite all this, I was beginning to make progress. I was getting up in my wheelchair three hours per day now, and had purchased a cheap used rampvan that I could use with great effort. I had plans for the future — getting into physical therapy and making a late-life comeback at age 79 after three rewarding careers. Then this jerk runs in front of me.

Sounds unfeeling and insensitive, I know. But even a chicken knows not to cross a road wearing headphones without looking first. I could see the headline on the back pages of our local newspaper: “Elderly Cripple Driving with Hand Controls Kills Young Jogger.”

At the Scene

I missed making full-on contact by a hair’s width. The jogger hit the left side of my minivan, smashed into my driver’s mirror, slamming it back against my car door, and caromed off wildly, sprawling on the road before I came to a near stop. Cars were coming from both directions, so I had to keep moving forward to avoid being rear-ended. I wanted to keep going but my conscience put on the brakes. I found a narrow lane, turned around and headed back to the scene of the crime.

He was sitting on the pavement on the other side of the road, hunched over, bleeding from one side of his face, holding a bloody rag. A security guard who had been nearby was comforting him. A bystander directed traffic. I pulled over after passing him but had no way to exit my van. No space to deploy my ramp and roll out in my wheelchair. I wanted to at least identify myself and see how badly he was injured. Another security guard passed next to me in a hurry. I honked. He reluctantly came to my window. “I’m the guy who hit him. I can’t get out of my car. I need to go to a doctor’s appointment. Can you take my info or something?”

He scowled at me. “You wait right here or YOU WILL BE ARRESTED!” I was the assumed don’t-give-a-damn perpetrator. I called into the wound care clinic and left a message saying I would be late.

In five minutes, a sheriff’s deputy arrived, then another. Then came the ambulance. I sat and waited, a prisoner in my cell, muzzled, eager to tell someone, anyone, my side of the story. Finally, after about half an hour, a deputy came to my window. He took out his notepad, wrote down my license plate, vehicle and insurance info, looked at my driver’s license and listened as I told him what happened. “How is he?” I asked.

“He’s on the way to the hospital. I don’t know the extent of his injuries. You say you were going 40? Were your lights on?”

“That’s right, I always drive with lights on in the rain.”

He told me I’d have to make an accident report on the DMV website within 72 hours. I told him I was concerned about my lack of a driver’s side mirror, which was intact but disconnected, dangling out of its housing like a popped-out eyeball. I was still shaken from the accident, nervous about driving without a side mirror. He and another deputy secured the mirror into the housing with accident tape.

“Were there any witnesses?” I asked.

“A man passing the other direction saw what happened and stopped,” said one deputy.

I was relieved. At least someone besides an elderly cripple driving with hand controls had seen the jogger bolt in front of me. But he saw it from his viewpoint, not mine. I had the ringside seat, the only one.

‘You’ll Have to Reschedule’

When I finally pulled into the parking garage at the hospital for my wound care appointment, my cell phone rang. “This is the wound clinic. Don’t bother to come in.”

“I’m here in the parking garage. I’m here now. I’m coming in. I need to be seen. My leg —”

“No, please don’t come in. We’re double-booked with three appointments ahead of you. Don’t come in.”

“I’m already here. I can wait! You have no idea what it took just to get out of bed, get put together and drive an hour from my home in the country to get here. … It’s not easy.”

“I’m sorry, we can’t see you today. You’ll have to reschedule.”

I sat in the parking garage for a minute and considered getting out of my van and entering the hospital to see the jogger, who made it here before I did — without an appointment. I imagined myself at his bedside wishing him well, but deep down something wanted to poke him in the side with a sharp stick.

The next day I called the deputy who talked to me at the scene and asked about the jogger again. He said he didn’t think the jogger’s injuries were serious, possibly a broken collarbone from his fall.

Three months later I received a letter from my insurance company saying the jogger’s claim against me had been settled. Settled? No one told me the jogger had even made a claim! Did this mean a jogger wearing headphones ran in front of me where there was no crosswalk or intersection without looking before running across the road — and now my insurance rates would go up? I was the one at fault?

I called my insurance company and ranted. Thirty minutes later I received an email from them explaining that “settled,” in this case, meant the claim was dismissed. An investigation had found the jogger was at fault.

No Time to Rest

The hardest thing about aging with paralysis — or any disability — is just making it from one day to the next. You never know what is literally around the next corner. People like us wake up each day paralyzed, always paralyzed, no time off. Still having to make unwanted but necessary adaptations to whatever physical or cultural insult comes our way. Still having to deal with so many people who have no idea what it takes for us to keep moving, keep trying, keep smiling.

But after the dust clears at the end of each day and I’m alone in my hospital bed in the safety of my home, with loved ones nearby, I say a prayer of thanks. Sometimes our grit is rewarded. The day’s messiness and disappointment fade in the rearview mirror — and my crippled body and side mirror are still functional, accident tape and all.