I was OCC's First 'Real' Dropout!

Thursday, December 1st, 1966 at 8:00 p.m. was a cold night on campus. The temperature was about 20 and there was a brisk wind. There was snow on the ground. My roommate, Ken Nichols and I, along with Sheila Holland and Randa Herschel, were all on the north end of the Learning Center. Ken and I had been horsing around, showing off in front of the girls. Then we settled down and were laughing and cutting up, having a good time.  (The picture of Ken is at the window, days later, after the window had been replaced.  Ken was looking down at where I had landed.  The little blond is Randa.  Ken and I both really liked her and Randa a lot.  The other pic is of Randa and Sheila together, out between the Learning Center and just north of the old tennis courts between the girls' and boys' dorms. 

I did a really dumb thing. Ken said something funny and I sort of slapped him on the shoulder and I stepped back-- deliberately-- and leaned against the glass window, with my right foot sort of propped up against the bottom of the window frame. The windows did not have guard rails (someones bright idea), and kids leaned on the windows all the time. Admittedly, leaning on a floor-to-ceiling window is not something a thinking person would do. We did it all the time, though, and the greasy head prints all along the windows was evidence of the fact that I didn't invent dumb window tricks. I was in good company. I just became OCC's only REAL DROPOUT!

When my shoulders touched the window, the window did not just crack -- it exploded, and I went out of the window. My right Achilles tendon held me briefly, however, and that caused me to go out of the window head first, toward the concrete down below. I might add that the window was NOT made of plate glass. Some bright guy was responsible for the windows being made of 3/16" inch 'crystal'...not plate glass as most responsible people installed in public buildings. There were also not any guard rails in front of these floor to ceiling windows at that time.  The pane of glass was huge, and most of it went with me, and I landed on some of it and sustained a lot of cuts due to landing on glass. A lot of the glass landed ON me and some of that glass also did a lot of damage. I had over 500 stitches, from the initial surgery and repairs to my body from the glass. 

On the way down, some interesting things happened: Time slowed down. In my mind's eye, it took two hours and twenty minutes to fall that distance. I got to watch a  video of my life to that point in time. At the end of the 'video', I saw a brilliant white...tunnel (for want of another word that will adequately describe it). I felt at peace and was not fearful. I thought, however, that I was about to die, but the thought was not an unpleasant one.  The 'tunnel' through which I was traveling, was full of what appeared to me to be a dismembered chandelier, with the individual crystal pieces turning over and over, displaying both brilliant, familiar colors and colors I had never seen before. I have always assumed that the dismembered chandelier image was due to my eyes being open as I tumbled out of the window and as I looked up, I saw shards of glass tumbling in slow motion, reflecting the lights in the Learning Center. I don't know. The thing about the colors is still something I think about sometimes -- along with the brilliant white 'tunnel'.  Who can make sense of memories like that.  They say that such memories are common.  The slow-motion replay of ones' life in an instant is also an amazing thing.  I don't  understand any of it, but the memories of it all are still so vivid...like it was only yesterday.

As the 'video' ended, I snapped out of the pleasant reverie, and realized that I was going to hit concrete-- maybe head first. In my mind's eye, I thought I might land across the balcony guard rail (yes, there was a balcony guard rail, but no guard rails in front of 3-story windows!). I maneuvered so that I could land parallel to the railing. As it turned out, that is what happened, and that was one thing that helped save my life. I had taken several years of self-defense training in high school, and I knew how to fall properly, without having to really think about it. There was no time to think about falling correctly, but I did it instinctively. I landed on my back, with my head tucked on my chest, and hit the ground more or less flat, with my legs bent at the knee and feet flat. My arms were extended from my body and my hands and forearms were flat-- all of this to try to disperse impact over a larger surface area, while protecting my head. In my mind, however, there was still the specter of the guard rail on my left, running east to west. I landed right beside the guard rail, having corrected my fall from a head-first fall to a 'flat' fall, and a twist from a north-south orientation that would have put me on top of the guard rail below, to an east-west orientation that would leave me on the concrete, but not cut in half by the steel railing.

When I hit, I bounced. In my mind's eye, it was an exaggerated bounce, in slow motion. In an attempt to not hit the guard rail, I leaned somewhat to my right side, and in so doing, I tucked my right elbow, instead of leaving it extended as intended. (Remember, in my mind's eye, I had a long time to prepare for the landing).  Leaning to the right, I also lost the bend in my right knee, and my right leg was more or less straight out. Bad move! I heard my right arm snap, above my elbow. I heard my right leg snap, between my ankle and kneecap. I then felt my right wrist snap as my right arm was slapping like a rag dolls' arm on concrete and glass. On the first bounce, my 'tucked' head snapped back and slammed into the concrete and glass. One of my shoes was found a distance from the north side of the Learning Center, where it was thrown when I landed.

I thought I was dead. I couldn't breathe. When finally I was able to take a breath, the pain hit. Oh my, did the pain hit! I had glass buried in my back, legs, neck and head. I had glass buried in places where I didn't even know I had places -- front and back.  Then I felt the cold. Bitter cold. I was bleeding profusely. My fall shook the concrete and people felt the vibrations all over the building. The doors leading from the building to the balcony were locked, so no one was able to come to my aid. John Morrison, a computer genius working in the control room where the computers were located, felt the vibration at the other end of the building and came running to the north end of the building. He had a key to the door on his key ring. Mark Livingston was there with John when they went out on the balcony and picked their way across the glass and blood to see what they could do to help me. Mark ran back inside and grabbed a tennis ball and gently but firmly pushed the tennis ball into my right armpit to help stanch the blood flow. If not for that, I would have died right there on the balcony. John and Mark, seeing the crowd of students inside the building at the windows, asked them for coats to throw on top of me. The temperature and wind outside would also have killed me in short order. I was paralyzed. Girls began throwing their coats on top of me to help keep me warm.  John and Mark's quick thinking saved my life.  John and Mark are two men I pray for often, to this day.  I will also be forever grateful to the girls who threw their nice coats on me, getting them soiled with blood and glass.  Such kindness!

An ambulance was called. It took 25 minutes for the ambulance to make it to campus from Baptist Hospital. I was semi-conscious as they wheeled me into the emergency room. My eyes were closed. As they wheeled me (face up) to an elevator, I 'saw' the threshold of the elevator -- that it had not quite come level with the floor where the gurney was located. I somehow knew, with eyes closed, that my nearly severed right arm would fall from the gurney when we entered the elevator and ran over the 'bump'.  I said something to the gurney attendants.  I remarked about the floor being green linoleum...with eyes still closed. (Strange, huh?).

In the operating room where they wheeled me immediately on arrival at the hospital, I heard Dr. John Harsha, an orthopedic surgeon who had been called at his home, and who had hurried to the hospital. He was not happy about what had been done (or not done after my arrival there at Baptist). With my eyes still closed, and somewhat in shock, I heard Richard Mock (a Dean at OCC at the time), come into the room. I was conscious enough to hear his voice and know whose voice it was, and, with eyes still closed, I somehow knew that one of the attending nurses was a single woman, and I made some reference to the two of them 'getting together' and getting to know each other. (Dick Mock was single at the time, in case you're wondering). I heard about that remark over the weeks and months ahead, during my stay at Baptist. It seemed simple enough to me. In my mind's eye, I was above the operating table, and had a clear view of the room and the people in it. Same with the elevator. I was an 'observer', or so it seemed.

A team of surgeons operated on me for about 6 hours, trying to repair some of the damage. I had broken bones and a lot of glass damage. My head was bashed pretty good, and over time, it appeared that I would go blind. Dr. Harsha told me that I would likely not do well with radial nerve surgery on my right arm. He told me that the procedures at that time were likely to only give me the prospect of a 10-15% recovery of my arm. It looked like I would be a cripple, and maybe a blind cripple at that. I had internal bleeding, and trauma to internal organs from the fall. I ended up having to have five major surgeries to get over the fall from the window. I had to drop out of college and could not return until the fall of 1969. By then all my friends had graduated. Most of them, including my roommate, were now married. My roommate, Ken Nichols, married the girl I had been dating when I fell out of the window (Carol Davis).  

During Christmas of that year, I was still confined at Baptist. It was a lonely place. Most of my friends had gone home for the holidays. Two people stand out in my memory of those lonely days. Lon Winton (a member at Memorial Road at this time), and Chuck Hansen, came to the hospital often, and would bring treats, or sometimes stay for a game of chess. I will never forget their kindness to me, during the days of my deepest despair. I have prayed many times over the years for God's blessings in their lives. Lonnie and I were not friends...we were only acquaintances. The attention he showered on me was unbelievable! Who leaves family on cold winter nights to brighten the corner of someone who is not even a friend?  They were like angels to me.  I was lonely and frightened and in terrible pain.  They made a difference in my life.  I'll never forget their kindness.

On Christmas Eve, with most of the 6th floor of Baptist mostly empty, Dr. Harsha appeared one afternoon.  He told me he was going to 'smuggle' me out of the hospital, where I had been for weeks.  He said that he and his family wanted to have me come to their home for their Christmas celebration.  He had left his car idling (to keep it warm) at the entrance to the emergency room.  He had a wheelchair and a jumpsuit that belonged to him.  He dressed me in the jumpsuit, put me in the wheelchair and 'furtively' smuggled me out of the hospital via the freight elevator (that added to the drama and suspense).  I spent the day with the Harsha family.  Dr. and Mrs. Harsha had eight children and Mrs. Harsha was due to deliver their ninth child any day.  I sat there, among all the Christmas trees and presents and drank eggnog and cider and enjoyed their hospitality.  That evening, Dr. Harsha returned me to the hospital and once again, to my delight, engaged in the same conspiratorial drama that really appealed to my sense of adventure!  What a family!What a man!  I still thank God for Dr. Harsha regularly. 

Long story a little shorter: Over the years ahead, God healed my body. Completely. I have no disability from the shredded, severed nerves, or the broken bones, or the head trauma. I have 20/10 vision, with glasses. I have no arthritis. I still thank God regularly for His healing in my life. If this accident had not happened, I would never have met my sweet wife, Paula, who was in the 6th grade when I started college! If the accident had not occurred, I would never have met her. I wouldn't have two wonderful kids -- Gena and Jeff. I wouldn't have two perfect grandchildren, Raegan and Greyson.

I thank God for my life and for the blessings that I enjoy every day! Isn't God great?  Don't we ALL have so much for which to be thankful?  I don't take my life for granted.  I hope you're grateful for the blessings in your life.