THE ACCIDENT:

Only GOD Could Have Brought Me Through This Super Horrible Wreck

I was the youngest person National Security Insurance Company had ever promoted to District Manager. I had been working an open debit all week in Sylacauga, Alabama. At the same time I had been carrying on the regular duties of District Manager in Anniston, Alabama. I was sleepy and tired that night while driving back from Sylacauga, but in later years I found that I had Sleep Apathy which also could have contributed to my going to sleep at the wheel while driving.
I went to sleep, hit a concrete bridge, and went over a 80 foot embankment. This happened at 9:00 pm on Thursday night and I wasn't found until 2:00 pm the next day which was Friday September 10, 1971.

THE INJURIES:
I had a broken neck in four places, crushed hip, crushed pelvis, broken nose and facial bones which caused the right eye to blow from it's socket. I also had a broken wrist, crushed hand, and one leg that was torn from my pelvis to my knee and it lay open to the bone. The crushing of the pelvis caused the Sciatic Nerve to be crushed which causes me intense pain to this day. I was paralyzed in the 1st. hours down to the waist on the right side and from the waist down on the left side. This left one good arm that I could move and one leg I could move. However, the leg I could move was almost torn off. I was not conscious until sometime about dusty dawn. From the time I became conscious I fought to stay conscious but the pain from all the injuries caused me to drift in and out. If I attempted to move the pain was so intense I couldn't stand it. I had been thrown from the car and was laying out beside the drivers door which was open. My body had dehydrated, my tongue swelled, my lip swelled and busted. Later I learned that the dehydration is one of the things that saved my life. Because this prevented the fluid from causing the broken neck to swell cutting of my windpipe. The oil, dirt, and etc packed into my leg clotted the blood, even though I had almost bleed to death. But let's face it GOD had a life for me to live. I could speculate as to the reasons GOD wanted me to live and might do so before finishing this blog.

THE CAR:
My car was in an incredible mess, as I later discovered from pictures my brother took and from accounts of other people. You can see some of the pictures on my blog. The entire front end was gone, nothing but the frame was left. You could open the glove compartment and look outside. The windshield was just flapping, the entire steering sector steering wheel and all was laying out on the ground. The floorboard was peeled back and they really think I could have come out of the floor through it? One A-frame with wheel attached was laying in one direction and the other was laying in another direction. The motor was about 15 feet from the car. The transmission was broken off at the bell housing and was about 15-20 feet away from the motor. The hood was laying farther away, it was laying across a little creek and looked as though someone had just unscrewed it and placed it there. The battery looked as though it had exploded. One fender was in one direction and the other in another direction.

In those days the bushes and grass on the sides of the highway were never cut back, at least not in Alabama. Thank GOD now they are cut back so a car can be seen from the highway in most cases. I had heard scores of cars go by and realized that I couldn't be seen from the highway. Yet I knew I was dying and couldn't last long.

THE RAT:
My brother and Dad found a dead field rat at the scene. After telling me about finding it. It brought back memories of the rat running across my leg. I run my hand down to where the leg was laid open and grabbed the rat. I beat it against the ground and killed it.

THE STING OF DEATH:
I had often heard my Momma speak of The Sting Of Death (never really knew what that meant and I still don't). So when I attempted to lift my head up for the first time and the broken neck moved it felt as though I had just stuck my finger into a light socket. The moving of the spine caused the tingle like a shock and caused me to blackout. At the second it happened I remember thinking WELL....This Is The Sting Of Death.

I STOOD AT THE SCENE TO DOCTORS DISBELIEF:
Each time I would try to lift my head this sting and blacking out would happen. So I came up with a plan:
I would lay perfectly flat not moving my neck and I would get the one leg I could barely move pulled up under my buttocks so I could stand on it since my other leg wouldn't move and was paralyzed. But before getting it up close enough to grab the back of my pants leg so I could pull it under my buttocks, I had to just grab my leg in the open wound at the thigh and pull it up until I could get the pants leg. Thinking back on the grabbing of my bleeding flesh that day still gives me cold chills. But I really don't remember that being all that painful. I was hurting in so many places I guess I just didn't notice the additional pain. After using the one arm I could move (the other was paralyzed) to pull my foot up under my buttocks, I then reached for a vine that was hanging beside me to pull up by. Trying not to move my neck or head I pulled up with the vine and as I got up on the one leg I immediately threw the arm I could use across the open car door and my hand was on top of the white vinyl roof of my car. This was only for a second and as I raised my head to see where I was at so I could tell which way to crawl out of there. I immediately just kept going backwards since I had no control over the neck and hit flat of my back. From that point on I could only move my eyes, I was totally paralyzed from my neck down.
Several weeks later in intensive care I ask the doctor if the fall from trying to stand caused the final breaking of my neck and caused me to become totally paralyzed. He said son you didn't stand it would have been impossible. My Dad was present and he interrupted by saying...Oh Yes He Did !!! His bloody hand print is on the white vinyl roof of his car. Doctor Davies just shook his head and said Man That Gives Me Cold Chills.

THE RESCUE, THE MIRACLE:
After hitting the ground I could no longer move anything but my eyes. I really thought this might be it, the end of my life, it just might be over, but at the same time I kept repeating over and over in my mind the statement, You're tough, you can beat this, you can live, you can get out of here.
I was laying at the mouth of the highway trestle across the highway from me was a railroad track and the railway trestle was a little lower than the highway trestle. I heard a train coming. I'll never know; what made me think I could stop of all things a train that was all the way across the highway from me, when I couldn't even stop the cars on the highway with my screams. When GOD gets ready to answer prayers and do something big, He does it with something that we think is impossible to do it with. He proves He's GOD.
As I heard the train approaching I decided to get my voice as shrill as possible so it would carry farther. I was very weak and could only scream for seconds. But the miracle happened:
Just as a railroad work crew that was on the train got exactly even with the highway trestle my voice was funneled through the highway trestle at the exactly the second the work crew passed.
The work crew used their radio to contact the conductor to stop the train. They got to me just minutes before a Alabama State Trooper got to the scene. I could hear the rushing water in the nearby creek and since I was badly dehydrated I was really thirsty, so I begged them for water. An ambulance was called and then another miracle happened. They were going to carry me up the 80 foot embankment, but for some reason as they started to pick me up I said don't touch me my neck is broke, they said are you sure and I said yes. We later learned that would have killed me. They then put my neck and leg in a collar and cut a right-of-way to bring the ambulance down to me.

THE FIGHT WITH DEATH:
The ambulance took me to Talledga Hospital at first. During the ride I went in and out of consciousness, each time I come to the pain was unbearable. Nothing could be done for me at Talledga, while waiting for the ambulance ride to Carraway in Birmingham I begged for something for pain but they could not give me anything, I begged to die if I couldn't get anything for pain. I can't even imagine the staff in that hospital looking helplessly at me screaming to die if I couldn't get anything for pain, yet their hands were tied because no one would prescribe it for what I guess was fear they couldn't get me back if I went unconscious fro medication. Some of those present could have had 24 year old children of their own. I have admiration and appreciation for those in that profession.
They put two sand bays on each side of my head in the ambulance in preparation for the ride to Carraway. My wife was told to hold my head and not let it move. They said if it moved a fraction of an inch it could kill me. I was moaning and groaning from pain and still begging to die from the pain. After a few miles she could take it no more. The pressure of not letting my head move and the screams from pain was too much for her to take. So the drivers agreed to pull into the funeral home and get someone to ride with them in her place.
Several of my men employees had arrived and were following the ambulance to Carraway. When the ambulance pulled into the funeral home to get another driver and let my wife get into the car with my employees, the employee that was driving behind the ambulance just pulled in and laid his head on the steering wheel because he though I had died and they had took me to the funeral home.
Upon my arrival at Carraway I was pronounced "Dead On Arrival". But they started the heart and got me back. The 1st. thing I remember is the cold steel table in surgery and the pain from the scalpel they used to cut my scalp in order to drill holes in my skull that were used to bolt a plate onto it. The plate had a hook on it that was used to hang a 45 pound bag of water. This was used to pull my neck into traction. After ripping the scalp with the Scalpel the drill would start and the drilling would start on my skull. They drilled 4 holes and bolted the plate onto my head. There was nothing used to deaden or kill the pain. They couldn't risk me losing consciousness.

MOM AND DAD'S TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL:
After hearing the news of my accident my Sister and Brother-In-Law drove to Gadsden and picked up my Mom and Dad because they did not want my Mom and Dad to make the trip from Gadsden to Birmingham by themselves. When my Mom got into the back seat of the car she began to pray. My Sister said she prayed all the way to Birmingham City Limits. She prayed that GOD would just let me live until she could get to the hospital and speak to me. They had been told I might not be alive when they arrived. When they reached the Birmingham City Limits Mom raised up, dried her eyes, and said "WELL, HE WILL BE ALIVE WHEN I GET THERE BECAUSE GOD HAS REVEALED THIS TO ME", and I was. One look at me and Mom passed out.
My family was told I would only live a few hours. When I got past a few hours they would give me a few more hours to live. That's the way it went the first few days. Then they began to give some small chance of living. It started with a 30%-40% chance and gradually grew. Once they decided I would probably live, they said I would never walk again because of the severe spinal damage.

MOM HAD THE GIFT OF PROPHECY:My Mom said she dreamed all night while I lay under that bridge. She dreamed of trains and said she knew for some reason I was waiting on one and she wanted the train to stop for me. She said she remembered saying in her dream “Well Oscar’s going to be on this train for a long time”. Thanks to the railroad work crew and Momma the train did stop for me.
My Mom had the ability to predict things before they happened. Sometimes she couldn't explain the dream or sign she would receive at the time she received it. But would realize at a later date what it meant. She sometimes knew exactly what had just happened to someone even though they might be several miles away. Like the time I next door neighbor passed away. We had been sitting up with the neighbor and had just returned home to eat. As we sat down to the table to eat Mom suddenly dropped her fork and said to my Dad, “Bill let’s go Mr. Holiday just died”. There was another time when my Twin Cousins died. One day I started to leave my house to take a friend home and Mother suddenly started begging me not to leave just yet because she was afraid I was going to have a wreck. I didn’t want to believe her, but I was really nervous about leaving. I knew I had to get my friend home before he got into trouble with his parents. On the way a tractor trailer truck rear-ended me. Luckily I wasn’t hurt but my car was totaled. Looking back I realize that Momma’s gift was from GOD and that she had a form of the gift of Prophecy.

INTENSIVE CARE UNIT:
I spent nine weeks in Intensive care. Normally surgery would have been necessary to fuse the four breaks in my neck back together. This is a very serious surgery. However, I lay so long with the neck in traction waiting on the other injuries to heal that the neck fused on it's own without surgery. One of the really serious injuries was the right leg that was torn almost off. They could not stitch it back together for several weeks, it had to heal from the inside out. Skin would have to be drafted to get the whole closed up. Still today I have a big whole in my leg from almost my pelvis to my knee. To do this I also had to be put to sleep, which is something else the doctors did not want to chance doing for several weeks. Also, the hip was broken and the pelvis crushed, so the hip was in traction waiting for it to heal without surgery. Truthfully, the hip should have been replaced, I went through years of pain from the hip until it was finally replaced in 2000. When the pelvis was crushed, the sciatic nerve was crushed. Paralysis could have been caused by the broken neck or the crushed nerve. But more than likely the broken neck.

SPAIN REHABILITATION CENTER:
After leaving intensive car and have surgery on my leg I was put into the most miserable body cast from the neck to the waist. The cast had my neck bent back so far that I had a hard time swallowing when I eat. The doctor that did this cast was very old. As a matter of fact, he was the doctor that set President Ronald Reagan's leg when he broke it playing football. This cast was also so ugly and crude looking that the staff laughed at it. I really began to lose some serious weight when I went into this cast. Up until this time I had really ate well once I was off the fluids. I lay flat so long that it took almost a week of using a table called the "TILT TABLE". This table gradually tilt is a slight angle for about 15 minutes twice per day, this is done until you are able to set upright without passing out. Therapy is also performed on the paralyzed limbs in an attempt to get the muscle back into use. If the spine injury is severe you will never regain use and will remain paralyzed for life.
As soon as I arrived Spain Rehabilitation Center, they cut me out of this cast and put me in a neckbrace. Spain Rehabilitation Center is where they send people to learn how to use what limbs they have left that will work. They also keep you in therapy in an attempt to build any muscle you have left before you lose it. Thank GOD I finally regained the use of my limbs almost 100%. I am still paralyzed from the knee down on the left side. My accident happened September the 9th 1971 and I didn't get to leave Spain until sometime in January 1972, about three months in the hospital. I left the hospital in a wheel chair, but I could take short walks on a walker. The main problem was the involuntary movement of my left leg because of either the spine damage or the crushed sciatic nerve? When I would pick it up to take a step it would just jump up about two foot from the ground and was subject to slam down in a totally different direction than what I wanted to go. I had no control over the direction or movement. I gradually got control, and over time the injury to the spine and nerve healed a little.
MORE LATER........
I WILL TELL YOU A REALLY SAD STORY ABOUT A PATIENT I MET AT SPAIN: