The Tree

August 22, 1977

The Tree

The branches of a sugar maple cradled me. The trunk supported my back, while my extremities dangled over branches midway up the tree. What put me up there?


Limbs below framed a drama that held me captive. Through smoke I identified my Chevy pickup, motionless, split around the maple I occupied. The truck’s roof quivered transparent—I was supposed to watch. Twigs and leaves added to the haze and shrouded the streetlights, but the occupants of the truck glowed before me.


Who sat in my truck?


Why did the crook of a tree hold me?


What happened?


Where should I be?


My buddy, Brian, slumped between the driver’s door and upturned steering column. The windshield, webbed from impact with his forehead, protruded from its seating. I studied my friend. Unconscious? Dead? I watched while eternity measured us. At last the rise and fall of Brian’s chest, stronger each time, made me happy. Brian lived!


My body lay still beside Brian. My scalp gaped and a smear down the seat flashed crimson when the light flickered. My arms were pinned under my chest and legs as a result of the motor block pushing into the cab to trap me in a fetal position.

Insulation, firewall, and crumbled windshield trashed the seat. My neck twisted so the side of my face could be seen from my perch. I failed to sense life in my body. Brian began to stir—my face stayed still.


"This is what dying feels like," I thought.


Motor oil and antifreeze crackled on the engine block. Paint thinner and polyurethane from the payload poured through the truck's back window to coat us on impact. The fumes waited for a spark, or somebody’s lit cigarette.


A fringe crowded around the truck as people from homes and pulled over cars looked at the melee. A lady left the circle to peek in Brian's window. The door latch gave for her, and the door opened a slit before jamming.


"They're so young," she sobbed, "their poor mothers."


A man tried my door. It wouldn't budge. He nodded at me, and said, “This one is dead, but that one’s moving. This truck's going to burn!"


The emotions of the witnesses, and the pain Brian felt, washed over me. I felt only calmness as I looked over the faces. How could calmness be in my best interest?


People in the circle prayed for us. More of them approached the truck, determined to do something for the lives inside. I knew the test left me one role: accept being powerless and see what happened.


A rescue squad’s light and sound cleared Brian’s head. The stories his Fire Chief Dad told echoed in his head while pain wracked his ribs. The fumes hit his nostrils and the sclera of his eyes flashed fear. He rolled onto his back and brought his legs to his chest to kick out. His head and shoulders braced against me as he exploded into the glass. After three kicks and outside help, he slid out.


Brian hacked and rubbed his eyes to rid them of paint thinner. The grass and cool earth soothed his face. Breathing came easier as Brian started healing.


I could feel the grass on my friend’s face. I wanted to be on that grass. A glance through the roof confirmed my body failed to understand my thoughts. Fighting for life didn’t feel important, or controllable. Lights, metallic, red, and blue, splashed on us as more squads came in. Paramedics and firemen tore at the truck to reach through windows. They dug in, determined to keep me.


I looked through the portal, humbled, unable to do more. My face didn't move. My lungs stayed still. Should I breathe?


Who decides?


A fireman reached across my face to push away glass. His cuff bumped my nose. A jolt shot through me. Snap! The tree evaporated.


My lungs screamed: "Breathe!"


My body and soul came together. I heaved then exhaled. With each breath, the serenity of the tree gave way to pain. I would know life and suffering.






Paramedics talked over me about their patient. My eyes focused through the chemicals to see the lifesavers looking back. The questions, thank God, seemed basic: Can you hear me, kid? Who is the President? What month is it?


The firemen straightened my limbs. Each time they counted: "One, two, three!" to let me know when to hurt.


They slid a backboard behind me, then wedged blocks around my head and neck. They strapped down my forehead and cinched my chest. The paramedics worked together to turn me over. Seeing the roof from inside the cab felt odd: what happened?


A paramedic riddled more questions: “What’s your name? What is today? Are you head injured, Pal?”


They counted three again, and pulled me from the wreck to lie beside Brian. Someone’s troubles left us silent.


Mine?


How?


My legs felt bent back under me. “Let me see my legs!”


“They’re straight out in front of you – perfect. Don’t worry,” the paramedic assured me.


“Let me see my legs.”


He seemed busy. I asked again.


He lifted them high to show me. They looked like my legs. Why couldn’t I feel his hands?


"Please, don't tie them down again," I said.






The week before the accident might have caused a smarter man to be careful. I worked nights refinishing a gym floor six hours from home. My job would pay for college; I busted my tail to make it go. After driving home, I grabbed three hours of sleep in Saturday's small hours before taking care of my blacksmith business. Mom scheduled three head while I worked out of town. The horses were shod by 2:00 p.m.


Saturday nights belonged to Laura, my high school sweetie. We wanted to raise kids on a little farm after we learned to get along. My plans for college didn’t jibe with her Teller career at the Merchants and Farmers, or her church's dominion over her life. Traipsing off to college because I did, wouldn't be right.


We spent Sunday afternoon driving around the Hocking Hills. Age 18 is confusing. We didn't fight, but we didn't agree. We strained to understand our crossroads, saying each time was the last time, unless, or until, we married. When I walked her to her parent’s door, we kissed goodnight, or maybe, goodbye—telling the difference took too much energy.


My face hit the pillow as midnight revealed Monday, August 22, 1977. It would be the longest day of my life.


Brian worked with me. We left Logan, at 5:00 a.m. to be on the job refinishing the floor of a Marion warehouse. By 7:30, the electric system quit because our 220-volt floor sanders pulled too hard. Boxes and pallets cluttered the floor. Linoleum adhesives left from a corner office promised a day of delay. Body sized holes bore witness to a corrosive spill on two parts of the hardwood.


A day of coordinating electricians, maintenance people, and running to the breaker box produced no evidence of work.


“What’s going on?” our boss asked as he surprised us at 4:00 p.m.


His unhappiness attached to the owners of our project once he heard about our day. He shared advice and gave us keys to the Columbus warehouse. Brian winked at me while the boss talked. He knew Columbus from growing up there.


In Columbus, we collected nails, lumber, mineral spirits, and polyurethane finish. Loading the stuff took all of 20 minutes. Brian convinced me that college girls loved 18 year-old guys. We headed for High Street—Ohio State's strip—to find out.


We split a turkey sub and a pitcher of Budweiser at the Street Scene Restaurant. On a Monday night during finals' week of Summer Quarter, only the waitresses qualified as girls. They didn’t even smile back. Every club sat dark and quiet. We walked the strip and imagined Friday nights in September. At 10:00 p.m., we gave up and headed back to Marion.







I drove because Brian saw poorly after dark. When my chin hit my chest a second time 45 minutes out of Columbus, I snapped my head up. Coming to at the wheel of a moving truck—knowing grace alone kept us in the right lane—released adrenaline. The chemical is an invitation to tempt fate. I decided to finish the trip, and rolled down my window. The rush lasted a mile before the sick feeling of fighting sleep at 55 MPH came back. I thought about pulling over for a catnap. Instead, I turned up the radio. Not even Life in The Fast Lane could pull me out of the slump.


“Coffee,” I thought, as I looked at cornfields on both sides of the highway. A mug of corn wouldn’t do. Marion glowed on the horizon.


Brian slept nearly an hour by then. He looked too comfortable lying sprawled across the passenger seat. Marion, and our Budget Motel might be 10 miles away—15 minutes. No way I’d make 15 minutes. I decided to trade spots with Brian.


"Your turn," I said, while pulling over.


Brian and I tag-teamed sleep deprivation all summer. He groaned and stretched through a yawn, but he knew why I shook him.


“Ten miles, Dude," I answered before he could ask. We knew enough of each other to save sentences.


Brian grumbled out the door. While he walked around the front, squinting through the headlights reflecting off his faded jeans, my eyes closed on the passenger side.
Kids don't know about physical limits. Brian drove ten miles. He fell asleep, two blocks from our motel.


Our truck veered off the highway at 45 mph. It collided with one of the maples that lined the streets of Marion.


Nobody wore seatbelts in the 70's. Mine ended up stuffed between the bench and back of the seat months before the crash.







My head smashed into the dashboard at the same 45 mph the truck traveled before it stopped on the tree. The impact crushed my fifth cervical vertebra (C5) between the dash and my body. The blow didn't sever my spinal cord. It bowed over on impact to bruise. Central nervous tissue doesn't regenerate; a bruise lasts as scar tissue—forever. Life as a C5 quadriplegic began the instant the truck met the tree and I hit the dash.


I looked at a new world—ready or not.


Brian filled the stretcher beside me as we rode in the ambulance. It felt easier to give him grief about wrecking, than it did to focus swirling thoughts.


As I oriented, I remembered the tree. We aren’t alone. God spared me. Awareness of my trouble grew—along with my fears.



What did the good Lord have in mind?

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