When my husband was 17 and home on leave from the Marine Corps before shipping out to Viet Nam, he was walking down the road one early evening when he was struck by an 18-wheeler. He got caught underneath and was dragged for a quarter mile before getting loose and shooting out the back of the truck and nearly getting run over by the car behind. He was pronounced dead at the scene but an EMT realized he wasn't so rushed him into the local hospital. The doctor told his parents that he didn't have enough hands to do everything that had to be done, so his legs were straightened out (could hear him screaming all over the hospital), he was sandbagged and rushed to a larger hospital 50 miles away. He ended up in a coma for a few months. When he woke up and was told about the accident, he had a heart attack. He was crushed from the pelvis down. He went through surgery every week to repair the damage. He had his first artificial hip put in when he was 19. The military discharged him because he was medically unfit for duty and never paid a penny for his disability because they insisted he was on leave - not hurt in the line of duty. The truck was coming from the local paper mill and was way overweight. A few years later, he had a lawsuit against the paper mill and when it went to court, their lawyer took him aside and told him if he continued with the suit, the paper mill would fire his grandfather, father, uncle and any other relative he had working there. So, he dropped the suit and never received a penny for his injuries. He has been on total disability since 1979. We met in 1998 amd married in 2001. Some people were shocked that I was marrying a guy who can't hold a job and who very well may end up in a wheelchair one day (yes, despite his injuries he can walk... he's full of metal parts) In 2005 he underwent a fourth hip replacement and bone grafting in his pelvis. He can't remember what it is like to live without pain and walk normally. The disability he gets is not enough to live on so I work two jobs to help make ends meet. But he's an incredible guy and I can't imagine my lfe without him.
