Why I do it.

In the early 1990's I received a new student in my eighth grade class. Jerry had been attending another nearby school, but he had been suspended for behavior problems. His parents wanted to put him in a different environment to see if that would help him. Our country school had small classes and a structured, but friendly environment. His parents met with the principal and me to explain the problems had started a year ago, after Jerry had been involved in an automobile accident. He had been unconscious for a short time after the accident and had other minor injuries. He returned to school soon after the accident and began having problems in the classroom. I told the parents I was sure that we could help them. We couldn't.

Jerry had outbursts in the classroom where he would begin shouting and swearing over seemingly small issues. He got angry easily and unpredictably. He had trouble remembering things from one day to the next. He had wild emotional swings. We worked hard to find something to help him gain control of his emotions and behavior. He would promise to try, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally during an art fair we were having in the school gym, he refused to follow the directions of one of the instructional assistants. He refused her directions to go to time out. I overheard the confrontation and came to assist her. He refused to follow my directions and began swearing. Without touching him I tried to herd him away from the assistant and the other students. He began to move away and then turned and gave me a two-handed shove that sent me sprawling onto the gym floor. At that point the principal appeared and he and I physically removed Jerry. It was his last day in our school, he was expelled for pushing me. I was at a loss to explain why we couldn't reach him.

In April of 1994 I came home after work and started doing some yard work. Our older kids were at play practice at the high school. Derek was acting in the play "Into The Woods", and Michelle was in the pit orchestra. I heard Trudy call me and as I looked at her I saw a look of horror on her face. She handed me the phone and the woman on the other end identified herself as the emergency room physician at Lebanon Hospital. She asked if I had a 17 year old daughter with blond hair and burn scars on her chest. Trembling I stuttered, "Y-Y-Y-Yes". She explained that Michelle had been in an automobile wreck and had suffered an head injury. They had stabilized her and transported her by ambulance to Salem Memorial Hospital. She said that we should get there as quickly as possible and could not give us a prognosis.

I was shaken to my very core. I trembled so hard I could not dial the number she had given me for the hospital and had to call the operator and have her connect me. They gave me direction to the hospital, but I barely remembered what they said. We had to call the high school and have them send Derek home. We had to call a friend to borrow her car as our remaining car (Michelle had driven the family car to school) would not hold all of us.

We raced to Salem and took the wrong exit. We had to ask for directions at a grocery store. We raced through the streets of Salem to the hospital. It is a huge hospital, but when we went in the front entrance, someone asked if we were Michelle's parents. We said yes and they led us to a room near the ER. A nurse came in and asked if we knew what had happen. We replied no, we just knew she had been hurt in an accident. She explained that Michelle had sustain a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma. We were stunned. This was some horrible movie or dream.

She took us in to see Michelle and we expected to see a bloody, mangled mess, but what we saw was worse in many ways. She looked perfectly normal, but asleep. She had some minor injuries, a cut over the eye and a burn on her ring finger, but she appeared to just be asleep. There was nothing we could do to help her. So began a long journey for her and for us. Four months of coma, 7 months of hospitalization, five years of rehabilitation, counseling, and relearning.

Over the next few weeks, I desperately tried to find out what had happened. We called the police, the sheriff, the fire department, the emergency room. No one would talked to us, because of the possibility of litigation. We got the basic information about the accident from the newspaper story and a little from friends and friends of friends who knew pieces of the story. I was desperate to know what happened, had Michelle been alone and in pain while waiting for the ambulance, what had happened to cause the accident and all those things that parents worry about.

Finally in August, while Michelle was in Seattle at a specialized nursing facility for brain injured adults, we received a phone call. The women who called asked if we were the parents of Michelle and inquired if we wanted to know more about the accident. We said we were and we did. We arranged to meet her later that week. When she gave me her name, something was familiar about it. I couldn't place her, but I felt I knew her. The feeling wouldn't leave me as we walked up to her apartment, but it was not a familiar place. We knocked and the door opened. There stood Jerry's mom.

She had been following the car that was following Michelle, she explained. Michelle had tried to pass a slower car, but had not seen that her view was obstructed where the road dipped down through a creek bed. Just as she got beside the car she was passing, a truck came up out of the dip and hit her car. Jerry's mom stopped, got out of her car and ran to Michelle's side of the car. Michelle was not breathing well. Other witnesses said that they should get her out of the car, but Jerry's mom said no she should not be moved until the ambulance arrived. She then sat and held her until the paramedics arrived.

Over the next twelve years I began to work with a group of educators to help students and parents dealing with Traumatic Brain Injury. I became a consultant to schools and parents working with children who had suffered traumatic brain injuries and who were attempting to reenter school. I have spoken to educators and parents all over Oregon, Arizona and Washington, D.C. and I always begin my conversations with this story. It is my motivation for educating teachers and parents about TBI. I was not able to help Jerry because I knew nothing about TBI and how TBI impacted children and their families. Yet when my daughter needed someone to protect her and comfort her, Jerry's mom knew what to do and was the first to come to her aid. Reaching out to other families in pain has been my way to thank her and to atone for my failure.