Home for the Holidays After Severe Accident

Tuesday afternoon, September 20, 2016, Nichole had just gotten a call that her husband Rich was taken to the hospital. Then she drove up to the scene of an accident.  Nichole recalls, “The police stopped me and they were, ‘like ma’am, you can’t drive through this road’. And I just kind of froze. And I said, ‘that’s my husband’s motorcycle.’ He said, ‘you need to go to the hospital. Your husband has been in a motorcycle accident’.” An on-coming car had turned into Rich’s lane, crashing into his motorcycle and throwing Rich across the hood and onto the pavement… he was not wearing a helmet. Rich was still in the E-R. When Nichole got to the hospital.   A chaplain gave her an update. Nichole says, “She came out and took my son and I in a private room and told us, it didn’t look very good. I heard what she was saying. I just couldn’t process it. And when she walked out, I remember I hit the ground and I was like, ‘God, I can’t do this. I cannot go through this’.”

Trauma critical care surgeon, Doctor Amy Koler remembers, “He had a severe traumatic brain injury, which left him unresponsive, comatose. He also had significant left side of chest injury, punctured lung on the left, which dropped his left lung. He also had an injury to the spleen and it was a grade three to four out of five. And so that’s a significant splenetic injury.”  Nichole recalls, “At the moment that I saw him, I was afraid because I didn’t know what the future was going to hold. Is he going to make it? Am I going to be a single mom? Am I going to be able to pay the bills? So I know that I just kept really relying on God at that point. Because I didn’t have any answers.”

The news spread quickly that Rich needed prayer. Nichole recalls, “When we walked back out into the waiting room of the emergency room, there was like 20-25 people from our church.” Over the course of the evening Rich showed no signs of improvement. Doctors could offer no encouragement. Doctor Koler says, “With severe traumatic brain injuries, your life is in peril because you’re unconscious and sometimes the injury is so severe that you don’t ever wake up or you progress to the point of brain death.”

By midnight church leaders had organized a special prayer service at their church. Dozens more had crowded into the waiting room.  Nichole recalls, “I was just really crying out, you know, God, take care of him. You know, because I didn’t know everything that was wrong with him. But God did.” In the following days doctors kept Rich in a medically induced coma and monitored him closely for possible complications. Doctor Koler recalls, “One of the initial significant issues, besides the head injury, was a significant injury to the chest wall and the underlying lung. And so a lot of those patients develop significant pneumonias and they can’t progress on the ventilator and infection can lead to death.”

Meanwhile prayer chains were spreading around the world. As for Nichole, she  stayed by her husband’s side – except when it was time for church. Nichole says, “People started questioning well why aren’t you at the hospital? Why are you at church? And I would tell people I’m not going to let the devil take one more thing from me. I’m coming. And I’m worshiping the King of Kings and I’m worshiping the Great Healer. And I said and I just really believed, when I was at the church honoring God, that God was going to take care of my husband.”

Doctors tried a couple times to wake Rich up, but his brain pressure and heart rate would spike so they kept him in a coma. Nichole recalls, “It was a really, really scary time. And I really believe that that’s what got me through many dark, dark days. Knowing that the church was praying. Knowing that the body of Christ was praying for me and praying for my kids and praying for Rich.” Over the next couple weeks Rich showed signs of improvement. His spleen and ribs were healing and doctors were able to bring him out of his coma.  But now they worried he had suffered permanent brain damage. Nichole recalls, “But when he came around, he didn’t remember anybody. And that was – that was really scary. Because it was like God, what am I going to do? I’m going to be living with this guy who doesn’t know who we are. It was like, God, I thought he was getting better and now I’m getting hit with more stuff. Why isn’t this ending?”

The only thing anyone could do was wait, watch and pray. Nichole says, “And it was probably a good three days before he really started remembering who anybody really was. And when he knew who I was, it was just like, okay, this is going to be fine. We’re going to make it through this.  And it was almost like those butterflies again when we first started dating. Like I’ve got him, I’ve got my guy!”

When he was strong enough, Rich was sent to rehab. He pushed through, determined to make it home for the Christmas holidays. Rich recalls, “The recovery process was long, it was hard. It was aggressive. But my will to do it was everything to me. I wanted to do this. I wanted to be the husband again, the father again, the friend again. To be the word of what I’ve been blessed with to others, to show that this power of prayer works.” Late November Rich was released to go home, plenty of time to celebrate the holidays and cook his traditional family breakfast. Nichole says, “Having Rich come home around Christmas, you know, it really brought in the feeling of family. And that God had kept our family together. And when he got to cook breakfast, it was like wow, this is normal.”

Other than the loss of some hearing in his left ear, Rich has had no long-term effects from the accident. Rich said, “Shortly after my recovery of healing my body and my memory, I started recognizing how much, or how much mercy and grace was given to me by my God. I was thanking God for His blessing that was placed upon me.” Nichole says, “It doesn’t matter how little your prayer is, because there were times I couldn’t pray and there were times it was like all I could do was call on the name of Jesus. And I would just say Jesus. God heard the cries of the church, God heard the cries of the people. And really responded and showed who He was at that point.” Rich concludes, “To know that I’m still alive with head injuries, lung injuries, rib injuries, body injuries and what I went through. My God is a healer of all things. And prayer is real. Absolutely.”