Our world came crashing down on May 15th, 1992.  My hubby and I were taking care of errands after work that Friday  When I got home at 3:30 pm, I listened to phone messages and heard the scream of one of our son's friends that Carl had been in an accident, and could we please come quickly to the scene of the accident!  I discovered the accident had happened at 3:15 PM.  I rushed to the accident and was met by an ambulance crew, police, kids, and the TV news camera.  All I could hear was a horrible screaming of what sounded like an animal that had been hit.  A horrible scream!  Suddenly, the officer led me to a person lying on the ground.  The screaming was coming from that person....the officer asked me if that was my son.  I only recognized the shirt that he and I had purchased the afternoon before.   The officer allowed me to get near to my son. I had to step over the jaws of life to get to Carl.  4 firemen and one police officer were holding my son onto the backboard that he was strapped to.  Again, he asked me if that was my son and if he was on drugs.  I replied that I did not think that he was, but  did not know positively.  He had never used drugs, and I doubted that he had started using them that day!  I knelt beside my son and tried to get him to respond to me.  I asked him to think of his cat, his cherished cat, I asked him who I was, what happened.....I was only greeted by that horrible scream coming from his mouth.  I BEGGED him to respond to me.  Suddenly, someone was pulling my coat, pulling me away from my son.  He told me it was time to take him to the hospital.  He was not doing well, and I was not getting him to respond. I rode in the ambulance to the hospital.   The driver and my son were loaded into the ambulance.  On the way to the hospital, the attendants kept asking me what my son was like.  I didn't realize they were not getting the response they wanted from my son...they did not understand why he was not responding. We arrived at the hospital at 4:00 pm.  My husband arrived moments after the ambulance had taken our son to the ER.  The care takers immediately took our son and placed him in a special room and was monitored.  When we were finally allowed in to the room, we found our son  strapped to the gurney with 3" leather straps.  That horrible scream still came from our son's mouth.  The attendants 'monitored him.  The doctor came in and out of the room, but gave him no medication for anything.  I had noticed that the pupils of his eyes were not the same size.  His wrists were swollen and his hands were turned inward.  Time passed...1hour passed.  We were told he was probably on drugs and was discharged to our care as soon as he was coherent enough.  But, we continually asked why he was not "waking" up and why his eyes were unequal and nonreactive?  Eventually, the physician must have wondered why he had not responded as well, for she asked us to leave so they could get a urinalysis.  It was now 6:45 pm, 3 1/2 full hours after the accident...at 7:00 pm, the doctor came back down the walkway, her hands upraised in horror as she announced, "THERE IS NOT A TRACE OF NARCOTICS IN THIS KID'S SYSTEM!" Quickly, we were ushered out of his room.  Immediately they wheeled him to CT scan.  At 7:15 pm, the neurosurgeon arrived at our son's bedside, and at 7:30 pm. he was on his way to Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Thus began a 21 day journey before he left the hospital/rehab.  Unfortunately, he was left as a "Walking Wounded"-those who physically look fine, but their mental capacities are severly damaged.  Thus was the case of our son. Over the next 3 years, we were in and out of drug rehabs, courts....the entire gamet.  He was able to finish High School, but only with special considerations.  His life had been changed drastically.  Friends left...they couldn't deal with the child like kid.  His new "friends" led him to drugs.  He was kicked out of the home because his behaviour was extreme.  We were crushed.  Only his sister had much contact with him.  Eventually, with the understanding of a Judge, who realized that Carl did not need jail as much as he needed Brain Injury Rehabilitation, he placed our son in a Brain Injury facility in Minnesota.  We visited him-and eventually was transferred to Florida Institute for Neurology Rehabilitation.  That was the beginning of the end......

THE ACCIDENT

In Memory of Johnathon