My Trip South

formerly, The Honeymoon Page

Well, the wedding was held on Saturday, September 24, 1994 and we left on our honeymoon on Monday, the 26th. Originally, we thought of going to Canada but it gets chilly up there that time of season! We ended up heading South, to the warmer climates. I thought we could visit my ol' college, St. Andrews Presbyterian College, in Laurinburg, NC. I also had friends in that NC-SC region. On the return trip we would like to have gone to Atlantic City, NJ, then to her Parent's home in upstate NJ.

We headed South along Route 84 and 81, avoiding those nasty tolls on Route 95! I traveled this way to school as it is quite scenic (it sort of parallels Skyline Drive, the scenic route) as well as more "economical". Another advantage to this route is that it avoids driving trough the major cities. This route has quite a heavy volume of trucks and tractor-trailers and, if you have traveled this route, you know how the pavement has suffered it's own toll.

This is a picture of yours truly! We stopped at a rest area in Pennsylvania along the way down. Behind me is the "rest" facility on the left. My new (two week old) Ford Clubwagon XLT van sits behind me over my shoulder. It is "Emerald green" in color (the picture quality is hard to reproduce on the web). It rides about as smooth as a car. It is set up so when I am not driving it my ex-wife or someone else could. Behind the photographer (Cynthia) stretches a large cornfield.

When we got to Virginia we stopped in Charlottesville for the night. I have a niece and nephew that live in Palmyra (Adam was 15 and Samantha was 8 years old), so it was a nice place to stop and visit. Their mother (my ex-Sister-in-Law) brought them by the Motel and we all had supper together at the restaurant. This was the second day of our honeymoon. We were having a pretty good time, however, I was anxious to get out of Virginia and get to North Carolina!

The third day of our trip, September 28th, started off nicely. We decided to take it easy as it was kind of a lazy day. I figured we could be in NC by dusk so we were not in any big hurry, besides, we were on our honeymoon! <grin>

Traveling down Route 81 we usually change to Route 220 in Roanoke, VA. This way we can head due South towards Laurinburg, NC (my college town) without having to go all the way to Charlotte, NC, then head straight East for 90 miles. The drawback is that Route 220 is a very hilly and winding road with four lanes (two North and two South). Trucks seem to heavily favor this route too.

We were traveling South, down Route 220, just above Martinsburg, VA (Rocky Hill) about three o'clock that afternoon. Cynthia was catnapping as my passenger. I was heading down a hill in the left lane, ready to negotiate a right corner. I had a tractor-trailer on my right side, on the inside lane. I knew he was behind me, not too far away, but I was concentrating on the corner as my hydraulic steering was quite sensitive (and my steering wheel is only 8" in diameter!). I was slowing down from 55mph to about 50mph when suddenly I heard one solid blast of an airhorn. The horn startled me and I gave the wheel a slight jerk clockwise. I veered into the right lane and I got into the shoulder of the road. Route 220 has no breakdown lane on either side of the road. Once off the road...that's all she wrote. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are several thousand....

<...sigh...>

I drove over a gully, became airborne for a second, and headed off through the woods until a rather large tree stopped us - Cold! As you can see we hit the tree almost dead-center. We sat there for a few seconds wondering what the Hell happened! Cynthia and I both lost our eye glasses on impact. I can see okay without them, Cynthia needs hers more.

I could hear a motor whining but hadn't figured it out yet. Smoke started pouring in through the A/C and heating vents. Cynthia tried to open the doors but they were jammed shut! Cynthia started to panic. Oh Shit, now what??! I looked down and the Backup Steering light was on. I had Cynthia reach over and shut it off the Backup...the motor stopped...the smoke slowly dissipated. Cynthia felt of me and I was soaked in sweat. My legs were jammed under the dashboard.

After a few minutes, which seemed like hours, people started to show up. I saw a lady standing in front of the van taking pictures! I wondered why she wasn't helping us. Here we are stuck in a smoking van and there is this lady taking pictures! Later I found out that she was a friggin' Reporter! Not only was she of NO help to us, she even screwed up her story in the newspaper! Go figure, eh?

The EMT's got the doors opened. Cynthia got out through the side doors and was escorted to a backboard that they immobilized her to. They also put a cervical spine collar on too in case of a neck injury. I was taken out through the driver-side door. They bent the driver-side door backwards, slid me down on the floor, then out onto a backboard. I told them I was a quadriplegic...some overheard this and thought that I had just broken my neck. They put a cervical spine collar on me and taped my head to the backboard to immobilize it further (my hair got pulled and stayed that way until the tape was removed!). We were then taken to Franklin County Hospital for some x-rays and then transferred on up to Roanoke Memorial Hospital by separate ambulance (another 45 minutes!). Franklin Hospital was a smaller hospital and they needed us to be seen at Roanoke.

After we arrived at Roanoke, Cynthia got x-rayed some more and released from her bondage...ah, backboard. She received a bruise on her forehead and bruises and scrapes from the seatbelts. Her face was swollen around her eyes and nose. I was x-rayed and was found to have a collapsed left lung, a fractured right ankle, and two fractured femurs. They kept a chest tube in my left lung after it was re-inflated. My right femur was a closed fracture but my left femur came out through my kneecap! They performed surgery on me at 3 o'clock the next morning (what a long day)! Looky here....

This is my left leg (looking at it from the foot of the bed). Actually, that lump is my left knee (the cut on top is where my femur came through). That apparatus is called a "fixator". It has seven screws in it. The top two screws and bottom two screws keep the leg in traction, while the other three screws hold the fragments in place (I wore that fixator for seven months!). I was also sweating profuciously around the clock. The sweating lasted steadily for a month and then slowly tapered off.

After a few weeks of being in bed I finally was allowed to sit up in a reclining chair. It was difficult getting up but it beats staying in bed!

Here I am feeling kind of rough, to say the least. See the fixator on my leg? Not exactly the kind of honeymoon I was hoping for. Cynthia wasn't enjoying our "quality" time together (as much as me) but she was a "good trooper"! Speaking of troopers, the officer who was in charge of the accident scene stated I was not at fault. They said that they located the truck driver but he claimed that he didn't see anything! <yeah right!> All this time Cynthia got to stay at the Ronald McDonald House. They are a *very* good organization and we are very grateful for their hospitality!

It took a few weeks to get my wheelchair repaired. After battling with the insurance company, we chartered a small Cessna airplane (pressurized cabin) to fly me home. After we got loaded into the ambulance at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, to take me to the airport, the ambulance wouldn't start! I hoped it wasn't going to be "one of those days"....

Surprisingly, the flight home took only an hour and a half. The winds were in our favor. You can't see the door of the plane but it was SMALL! The ambulance service that was going to drive me home from the airport, in NH, had to call the fire department to come and assist them to get me out of the plane. I was strapped to a "squish board" and was literally tipped on my side and upside down to get out! Geesh! I am glad the weather wasn't too bad....

I found a good orthopedic surgeon (Dr. Iorio) at the Lahey Clinic, in Burlington, MA. After numerous trips down for casting, and re-casting, I got to know a lot of fine people. They casted my right leg first. After it healed enough so I was able to wear a brace on it (seven months), they took the fixator off my left leg and cast that. My left leg took a year before I could bend it! Then I wore a brace until it was healed enough to go without it (last March).

It has taken a while but I am back to driving as of last week (the third week of August, '96)! The folks who did the van modifications (Ride Away) were able to salvage a lot of the special adaptive equipment. The van is a 1995 Clubwagon XLT, exactly like the 1994, but black instead of green. "What a long, strange trip it's been...." (Grateful Dead)

Hopefully, next year, we can take a "real" honeymoon on Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.

(I'll add more to this later....)

You know, often times they have these segments come on TV talk shows, etc. about "Honeymoon Disasters"? Some couples' trips were spoiled because their luggage was lost...or the condo they rented got a flooded cellar because the washing machine sprung a leak. Cynthia and I look at each other and laugh. Hey, maybe we should go on one of these shows, eh?? <grin> But, it wasn't meant to be. Cynthia left me right after our second anniversary. She received an inheritance check from her deceased father's estate and ran off to live with, and after our divorce, marry Eric Merrill in St. Paul, Minnesota....