People often ask me of what I endured after the hiway incident and offered their sympathy for me.  I tell them that actually the  experience was easy for me.  I was given an expensive helicopter ride of some fifty-eight miles.  I had a multitude of people gathered all around me to care for my every need.  Truthfully I have no accessible recorded memory from a few moments before the incident until several weeks afterward.  It’s been easy for me.

On the other hand the journey through the experience has been a heavy weight on Lor Beth.

Lori was on her way to a young girl’s birthday party when she got the call.  The male voice on the other end asked if she were Lori Beth.  That was not a good sign; something was wrong.  Only her husband referred to her by that name and that was not his voice.

“Yes”

“Have you been told that your husband was in an accident?”

“No.”

“He was in an accident and was taken to Stormont Vail Hospital.”

“Where is that?”

“It’s in Topeka.”

“What happened?”

“I can’t tell you that over the phone.”

“Is he hurt badly?  Is he alive?”

 “I can’t tell you that.  He’s at Stormont Vail.”

There was much confusion and many questions that went through Lori’s mind.  Within a short time she was on the road from Olathe to Topeka, Kansas; sixty miles or about one and half hours.  During the long drive she was on the phone with many persons.  She talked to my coworker who was at the time in Colorado; our friend, Joe, in Topeka; and again with Kansas State Patrol and the desk at Stormont Vail.  It was an arduous trip.

When she arrived at the hospital she was met by a friend and my boss from work.  They took her through a passageway that was labeled for hospital employees only to where she could at least get a look at me.

She would later say that if they hadn’t told her who it was she wouldn’t have recognized me.  The face was swollen and severely bruised, scraped and torn.  The lower lip was partially attached and one eye was completely closed.

I was alive.

Sixty miles in over an hour Lori had driven.  In the back of her mind was repeatedly the possibility that now might be the time that she was in for multiple hundreds of thousands of insurance dollars.  Here she was and dealing with the fact that she was likely now not to collect anything at all.

Time and expectations are sometimes cruel.