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October 2, 2003 was a beuatiful fall day in south Arkansas, temperatures were in the 80's sun was shinning bright, and I was feeling great. My wife and I own and operate Honey Do's Home Repair Service in south Arkansas. It's a small service doing painting remodeling and repair at a reasonable rate across Ashley County Arkansas. We have a decent customer base and are ussually fairly booked up.All that was about to change. That day, Julie and I were working on 2 different projects, I was wrapping up an office remodel for our insurance agent, and she was starting an interior paint job, where we were planning on working for the next 2 weeks. During my breaks at the wrap up, waiting on stuff to dry etc. I was doing estimates for future work. During the day I had probably driven about 60 miles and was ready to call it a day by 2:30 pm when we ended up back on one job. I should point out at this point that my wife and I at this time owned 2 vehicles. We own a 98 toyota tacoma extra cab p/u that we use as our work truck, and owned a 1990 fully customized chevy suburban, The suburban was fully loaded and was build on an ambulance chassis with extended roof and length, a real heavy duty rig, and loaded to the gills. It was in mint condition, low milage and a really strong older truck. It was our travel and family truck. We had even taken it to Florida and Walt disney World in July of 03, and even at 12 years old it got good milage and was an easy ride across country. That morning when we realized we would be on seperate jobs, I decided to let Julie keep the toyota and I, since I was doing estimates and clean work would take the suburban. When I came home after it, I noticed the seat belt wouldnt latch on the drivers side, there appeared to be some trash in the latch and just wouldnt quite latch up. No big deal, I'll fix it this evening when I get home. Right little did I know- I would never drive that rig home again. My day would end in tragedy.
After doing 4 estimates and finishing up a small project around 2:30p.m. we caled it a day. My wife brought the toyota home, I drove a friend that was helping us that day home. We, my friend and I, discussed a squeak in one of my truck doors and he was going to fix it the next day for me. After I dropped him off, I took a round about way back to town. I drove by and checked some paint at the insurance office, then as I was leaving there, I noticed school was letting out. That caused me to reroute my trip home. For some reason I took the long way. I went east 3 blocks to a residential street, instead of west one block to Main Street. Our house is less than 400 ft off Main Street , on the opposite end of town from where I was. About halfway down, towards home, I made the decision to reroute over to Main, again no reason, just happened to turn that way. Was by no means a resaonable route, it added 5 blocks to the trip, and there was no reason for me to back track like that. I was putting myself into school traffic, and for no real reason. As I made that turn I reached across my truck and put out a cigarrette in the ashtray, anyone who's been in that model suburban knows that it's a design flaw, the driver cannot reach the ashtray while moving. Let me point out here now, that at the time I was a three pack a day smoker, I was never out of reach of my zippo and smokes. In my suburban, the console had a pocket made to hold those items. That's where my smokes stayed when I was in that truck. Lighter and smokes in reach in console. Also as a smoker, there was always a full pack locked in the console with the lid closed, if I opened that pack, I replaced it as soon as I got home. That said let me continue my ride. After extinguishing my smoke, I turned up the volume on the radio- Uncle Krackers version of Drift Away was on- I love that song always wanted to learn the lyrics, never had though. I turned right, back west towards Main Street again, and started that way, I made it 2 blocks when I knew this car was going to run the stop sign on my right. I dont know that I ever saw her coming, (I've been back to the intersection, the intersection is blind to the north more than 20 ft if you are driving west. There was no way to actually see her, but I knew she was coming. At that point I started a left hand turn and cut off a car load of kids heading east, and scared the lady behind me to a stop, she had 2 kids in her car as well. I made it about 45 degrees off straight before the impact. This is about the point I remember my last action being to let go of the wheeel hit brakes and reach up saying" God you have to control this because I cannot stop it". That is my last consious memory before I came too 2 days later. At this point, I'm going to start quoting the 2 witnesses that were there. They say that as soon as she hit my truck, right on the front right hand tire, it folded my truck 45 degrees and seperated the motor from the tranny. I went out the passenger side window head first , and ended up hanging on the door with my knees in the window, my head resting on the running board. My truck made a continuing circle and the passenger side crashed full into the front of a 94 ford motor home, crushing me between the two trucks and my body taking out the hood grill and part of the front cap of the r.v. My passenger door was unharmed so we know it had to be my body, plus the r.v. was dented in about 10 inches. As the two trucks seperated, my shirt pulled me free of my rig, and I fell to the ground, that's when the right half of my face was scraped away as I seperated from the r.v., and hit the pavement. I landed at the foot of the r.v., about the time her car bounced off a tree and headed towards me. No one can tell me what my truck hit , or what hit it at this point, but some how it came back into the wreck, and the rear bumper of the suburban pinned her car to the r.v. 18 inches clear of my head. Pictures will follow as I can arrange to get them. At this point I have not seen any of the photos of either me or the accident scene. I will post them once I can. This is where we landed, her and her passenger pinned in thier car, me on the ground with my face ripped open, and witnesses watching, including a couple kids. I am told that the entire time, I was very calm, collected, was trying to reach my cell to call my wife even. A niehgbor of ours showed up and did that for me. The E.m.t.'s told me later that I helped them get my head held together, helped to roll onto the back board, and was carrying on a very clear conversation. They took me to our local hospital, where the dr.'s determined that I was beyond thier assistance and had to be moved to a better trauma center. During the wait to find one to help me, I apparently talked with my wife, telling her at one point she needed to call a couple customers for me and tell them "I'll be a few days before I can drive any nails". I also remember, at this time, talking to 2 others besides my wife, and not all of our conversation just bits. I clearly remember hearing an E.m.t. friend from church telling me he wanted to transport me but couldn't, and that he was praying for me. I also remember talking to my pastor and telling him that God had held onto me. I remember telling my wife I was o.k. I remember the dr.'s saying "You're going to Jackson Mississsippi, to try and get a glass eye put in.", since they weren't sure my eye was salvageable. Apparently I rode to Jackson, where it was a 8 hr. wait to get me prepped and into surgery. My wife with my parents, and, her adopted sister, and best friend, had time to reach Jackson and get a hotel room and take a nap before I made it into surgery. I came too on the operating table, this was my first real memory after the impact, I saw an Asian Amarican man in a white coat,leaning over my face. So I said "Hello Doc". He appears shocked by my voice, so I speak again, this time I hear a voice that doesn't belong to that face. The voice was a young white guy who had obviously grown up in Mississippi. And I said so. Then this guy leans over from above my head , young white curly red hair and south Miss. accent. I say that's who I hear. The young dr. says "I cannot believe he's seeing anything out of that." At this point, I realized that the left half of my face was taped up, and I wasn't able to move. What I saw had to be from my right eye. The Asian dr. then spoke up, he told the resident to test me, by holding up a card. I read the numbers, then he held up his hand with 2 fingers pointing to my right 2 folded under pointing to my left and his thumb held out towards top of my head. He asked how many fingers am I holding up. I replied "Doc I see 4 fingers and a thumb,2 pointing right, 2 left, and the thumb towards my head, but after all I been through, I need you to tell me which way is up." The Asian Dr., at this point, says, "Dr Moore we are going to save his eye, I can tell he is seeing us through that eye" He then introduced himself, and the residents, and they started trying to get me put back out so they could work. They then took several hours in the OR to reattach what was left of my eyelids, cover my glob( my eye at this point was an indistiguishable glob of white. no pupil, no iris, apparently 2/3 of my eye was damaged or missing.)and trryingto get my hed sewn back together. I was cut to the bone from about 6 inches above my right eye and over my ear, down in a curve to the bottom of my nose, acros my lower eye lid over to edge of my eye socket.That flap of flesh had been rolled back and was hanging loose over to my ear.Both of my eye lids were severely damaged, cut up and about 3/4 of the top lid was actually gone. They rebuilt them that night for the first time. That was October 3rd 2003. I finnally came home from hospital on monday after the wreck. I got my self situated and ready, thinking it was in good shape, on October 6th every thing looked good. On October 10th that changed, the first time. That afternoon we had gone to a lawyers office to discuss whether or not he could help us. When we got home my eye was stinging so we unwrapped to change dressing, Thats when my wife found the hole in my upper lid wher etissue was falling appart. by the morning of the 11th it had completely seperated and was in 2 peices. Of course this meant a rushed return to hospital, and more or time.From the morning of the 11th till the night of the 16th they kept it covered up and moistened, the morning of the 17th we went to OR for surgery number 2.That day they placed an embriotic membrane covering over my eye to buy us a few days to learn what we were going to do next. We tryed having the chief plastic surgeon look at it, he was not interested told the ocular plastics guy that all he would consider was turning a flap over a prosthetic and stitching it shut, there was no way my eye could be saved. We politely told him to leave that we wanted a second oppinion. We found one with ENT dept that was interested in trying to save the eye and create a working set of lids. We then went back to OR on october 22nd to let him get started. That day they turned a flap of facia from along my skull lining above my left eye down into the upper lid position of my right eye. it was a little short and they streched it just a fraction,( 2 mm) was what drs told us. We found later, that streched part wasn't going to make it. A small hole started to develop at the lower edge of the flap and began to spread up towards center again. By the time we determined what was going to happen next,the hole was almost 3/4 inch long and 3/8 wide.This was around November 15th. We managed to hold off the next surgery until after December first, and on December 2nd they turned a flap up that they took from along my smile line from my chin up to my eye. This was the size of a finger, and looked like one, they left that in place throught the month of December. In January they started down sizing it to get ready to re open my eye. They seperated the flap from its base and reinserted it into my eye socket at the bottom on January 13th, This was to become my Norm for the next 2 months. We then waited for 6 weeks on a piece of equipment to come in, an electralosis machine small enough to work on the flap at my eye. Once the machine came in and they Zapped the whiskers off, the Drs started thinning the flap, under a local anesthetic in his office, thinking that once thinned and seperated they could be ready to start on my eye itself. We kept that up for 2 weeks then after thinning the third time, they wanted me back in the OR to seperate the lids and start getting my eye operational again. They ended up seperateing it on April 4th and we lost 50% of the tissue to shrinkage after the surgery. We went back into surgery on the 13th of April and added more skin grafts to extend the upper lid. Again we lost a large percentage to shrinkage. The Drs were at a loss at this point to find a way to shut my eye and make it operate. Finally after a couple weeks of conferencing between the now three surgeons involved, they came upon the idea of adding tissue expanders to my head and stretching the skin in place . We went into the operating suite on monday April 26th, only to get bumped over to the 27th before they were able to operate. Once they got in, the expanders were too large for what they wanted to do so we had an emergency Operating room conference and I now have one large expander instead located between my eye andright ear, swelling that skin and muscle and in a fwe weeks they'll go in and relocate it over to where they want it around my eye. That covers the medical portion of my story to this point.
Now for a bit of "the Rest of The Story" As I said earlier I was a three pack a day smoker, and had them close. after the wreck, in the hospital, i noticed I was not wanting a smoke. During my initial stay at UMMC my friends here went to clean out my truck for me. The guy called me in hospital asking where i had hid my smokes and if i had been out at the time. He found my lighter still in the pocket attop the console, but no cigarettes. Even the pack in the console was gone. We figured some kid saw them and picked them up. When I got home I went through the console and sure enough every thing was in my console but the smokes. This made my wife curious, and she decided to go recheck the suburban. She went out to the salvage yard and went trough the truck. she found a few items in the truck, but noticably missing were any signs that a smoker had driven the truck. The smokes werent there, niether was the ashtrays, any empty packs, and you know as a heavy smoker there had to be emptys in my truck. There was no sign of any smoking ever been in the truck. And the best part, I have not smoked a cigarette since the accident. This was when she found out that apparently my body had broken the arm rest off of the captains chair, and that the brake pedal was broken off and the arm of it straightened a bit.This wouldn't be strange, but There was no damage or injury to my body, other than minor scratching, below my neck. The only damage they could find on my body and this is with numerous and repeated mri, cat scan, x rays and the works,, was 2 cracked vertibrea that appeared to have healed on thier own many years prior by the amount of cartalidge around them. I am now awaiting the end of treatment, getting my eye back up and running right, and For the Drunk driver, who by the way walked away from the hospital where she was found to have no injuries, rto go to court. She has gotten it postponed twice already, and we expect her to fight it. Shes facing several felony charges now including wreckless public endangerment and felony dui, also vehicular battery and at one point they discused attempted vehicular homicide. She is facing a jury trial, and the prosecutor is wanting to hit her with criminal restitution, to go along with the 25 yrs and 25000 in fines shes facing. We appreciate your prayers and thoughts, I will update this page with more info and pictures both of myself and my progress and my truck and the accident scene as I can aquirre them. As of right now I haven't seen any pictures either of myself following the wreck, or of my truck and the scene, and I am trying not to look until I can see them with both eyes. Hopefully this wont be much longer, We are pryaing that by the end of the summer it's all going to be over and my face will beoperational, that i am able to drive and work, I have not been on a job site since October, and am strictly still tied to the house, I do get to cook and do minor house work, but no lifting twisting bending over, and with this expander in my head, no turning to the right. That appears to have coverred the majority of my story, I left out the settlement suffice to say it was small, her insurance payed 25000 towards medical bills, and that didnt go far. The state of Arkansas doesnt allow law suites against insurance companies for more than the policy limit, and the State allows a limit of 25000 on medical coverage. Of course my insurance , due to a mistake on y part, was unable to pick it up, I had un insured coverage, but not under insured coverage. That leaves us facing over 250000 dollars in medical expenses and very little recompense . We have applied to SSI and to medicaid, medicaid is paying from febuarry on, but prior to that we incurred over 90000 that we are trying to get some sort of aid from the hospital to cover. Thankfully the university does offer a fianancial aid system to help pay these bills. We are applying this week for an appeal of the ssi denial, and the financial aaid system, hopefully we'll her back soon, but even if they dont come through, I am hoping that the criminal restitution comes through, that way she will be responsible for the bills not me. I Thank You now for taking the time to r ead this, for any prayers and thoughtsa, and if you want a more personal contact you may e mail me at honeydos_1999@yahoo.com and I will respond to any questions or coments you have. | |
