becky curtis

BECKY'S ACCIDENT
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NOTE FROM BECKY
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bcurtis@cybernet1.com

I know the updates continue to help people follow Becky’s progress, but many have been asking, “Exactly what happened? How did Becky get into this condition in the first place?” The following is a rough draft I have written that tells the story. May God fill you with His hope as you read.

Barry.

          Sunday June 19, Montana camp meeting in Bozeman was over, the constituency session had ended, and we left the conference office dedication and headed for our home in Hamilton Montana. Rather than going through Missoula we took a more scenic and faster route through the Big Hole valley. This valley is one of the loneliest, and most scenic, places in Western Montana. About 20 miles out of the town of Wisdom Spencer was trying to sleep and fighting his seat belt (which kept locking up on him), so he took it off. Becky debated in her mind if she should go to the trouble of “hassling” her 14 year old about not wearing his seat belt. Being only 20 miles from stopping in Wisdom for a bathroom break she was inclined to let it go, but then felt a strong impulse to ask him to put it back on. She said, “Spencer, you need to put that back on, I might need to swerve to miss a deer or something and we’d be in an accident.” Irritated by the seatbelt but obedient, Spencer reluctantly put it back on. 5 minutes later Becky dozed off for an instant, caught a tire off the shoulder of the road and woke up skidding back and forth.

 I was driving ahead of her and saw it all in my rear view mirror. At first I noticed her swerving, then the 96 Jeep Grand Cherokee skidded sideways off the right side of the road. The Jeep took one soft roll when suddenly the rolling accelerated to an unimaginable velocity. The violence of it overwhelmed me as I realized in my mind that no one could have survived such a thing. I pictured Becky, Spencer, and Hannah being tossed to death in the sheer brutality of it all and I cried out to God horrified by the realization that I had just lost these precious souls. I told Paul, “Oh no Paul, they wrecked real bad, Oh man! God help them! No God, please don’t let it be, don’t let them die.”

            Paul and I continued to cry out to God in our distorted, horrified sobbing voices. I turned my car around and drove back to the Jeep, sure that I would find my wife, son and daughter dead in the wreckage. It was then, as I was turning around and driving back that I got one of them back. There in my back seat was Hannah, sleeping soundly, but being woken by her dad’s distorted cries (she told me later I sounded like Elmer Fudd, “pwetty scwewy eh?”) Silent in her sleep, I had forgotten that she was in the car with me, but rejoiced that she was safe and unhurt.

            Still my heart went out to Becky and Spencer, were they alive? Could they have possibly survived such violence? Bracing ourselves for the worst, Paul and I ran across the highway and into the borrow pit on the other side. All we could see at first was the mangled front end of what had once been a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We could hear Spencer groaning, and Paul ran to his side. I ran to the driver’s side anxious to find life but prepared for the worst. As I rounded the corner there sat Becky, her head cradled in the corner of the door, but alive. I asked, “Oh Becky are you OK?”

            And she answered, “I can’t feel anything below my neck.” Immediately we both knew her neck was broken. Since none of the doors would open, I climbed in through a window to check both of them for bleeding and more serious wounds.

Then I heard a car driving down the highway. We’ve driven the Big Hole before and not seen a single vehicle, so I knew this may be my only opportunity for help. I stuck my head and arms out the rear hatch of the Jeep and began waving and shouting. The driver saw the motion and stopped. There is no cell phone service in the Big Hole, so I shouted to him to go to the nearest farmhouse and call in an ambulance. I climbed out of the rear window and ran back around to Becky. She was OK, but Spencer was groaning and kicking his arms and legs, so I ran around to him, unbuckled his seatbelt, and Paul and I got him out and laid him on the ground. A second vehicle came by and I sent him in the opposite direction of the first, not knowing which farmhouse might have people at home this time of year. We laid Spencer down on the soft ground and several cars stopped to help us. I asked a woman for a blanket so that we could treat Becky and Spencer for shock, and she brought me Hannah’s blanket (which had flown out in the crash) and some sleeping bags that they had in their cars.

            We kept Becky still in the Jeep and covered her with Hannah’s blanket while Spencer got the sleeping bag. All the time Becky kept telling me that she was uncomfortable with her head against the door jamb and window. She was struggling to breathe and was begging me to get her out of the car. I couldn’t because the doors were jammed shut, plus I knew that by moving her we could cause her more injury, so I stayed there with her, holding her head, and telling her to breathe (Lamaze training pays off in times like these.) I didn’t know it at the time, but both of her lungs were collapsed. I could see that each breath was getting shorter and feared that I would lose her right there on the side of the road. From how she sat there her head looked crushed, and when she talked I could hear a crunching sound which I was sure were bones in her broken face and jaw. (It turns out it was dirt in her mouth crunching in her teeth.) She kept saying, “Just let me go Barry, you don’t want me like this.” But I assured her that I did want her and it would be OK.

I kissed her and said, “I love you from the neck up too honey.”

Around that time one of many miracles happened. I looked up and saw Sandy Lacy, one of our Stevensville members, walking up to the scene. She saw my son Paul with Spencer and said, “Paul who is this?”

I waved from behind the Jeep and said, “Sandy, it’s Becky and Spencer.”

Sandy is an RN, and was quick to begin helping on the scene. Her husband Dennis, a dentist, and her brother in law Ken, another RN, came to the scene too. Dennis got in the passenger’s seat next to Becky and calmed her, Ken stood next to me and calmed me. I hugged him and said, “Ken, wake me up man, this has got to be a bad dream.”

He said, “I wish I could Barry, but this is no dream.” I hugged this solid rock of a man and cried. (A big part of the miracle in this story is that Ken should have done this trip weeks before. He was on his way back from Florida with a motor home he had bought and should have been home much earlier, but had been delayed, providentially, and came along just at the right time, to the right place, God’s time, God’s place!)

About that time, someone walked up and handed me a pewter cross that Becky had worn on her white denim jacket. It was a gift from Sandy Hudson, a great Christian woman from Hamilton, and one of Becky’s good friends. I placed it on the dashboard, as a reminder of Christ’s loving sacrifice and presence with us. Several times Becky asked me to pray with her, and I cried out to God with all my heart to save my wife, keep her alive, and breathing.

We couldn’t get to Becky very easily. The doors on her side were crushed and locked into each other and I ripped the handle off the rear door trying to get it open. A farm kid who had stopped grabbed one part of the door and with super human strength pried the corner free so we could open the front door. I pulled Becky’s door open and we waited for what seemed like an eternity (about 1 hour) for the ambulance to come. Finally they arrived: an amazing crew of volunteer locals in an outdated ambulance and minimal equipment. Using what they had, a cervical collar and towels, they stabilized Becky’s neck and gently removed her from her seat and strapped her to a board. They also put Spencer on a board and put them both in the Ambulance, Becky in the center, and Spencer on the bench next to her. 

I begged for a helicopter, but they assured me that they could have us to the Butte hospital quicker than a helicopter could get to us and get us there. When she said, “Butte,” I nearly collapsed. Most people think of Butte as a large hole in the ground along interstate 90, and I guess you could say I was no exception. It’s kind of the Nazareth of Montana, as people are often heard asking, “Can anything good come out of Butte?” Again the ambulance crew assured me that this was the best place for Becky and that they had a very good Neurosurgery center there. I remembered that one of my church members had a very delicate brain surgery done in Butte, and trusted that this was the best place, and the closest.

The drive to Butte was slow and rough. The Ambulance had a heavy suspension that amplified each seam in the road, rattling every joint in our bodies. Becky was fortunate to be on a shock absorbing support, which helped, still, with no pain meds, Becky suffered greatly the entire trip. Spencer, me, and the rest of the crew got pounded by the full force of each and every impact. Once out on interstate 15, the ambulance topped out at 40 going up hill and 80 going down. It seemed to take forever. All the way Spencer kept asking if Becky was OK. Becky was conscious and would answer, “Yes hon, I’m OK.”

Then Spencer would say, “Thanks for making me wear my seatbelt Mom, you saved my life!”

When we arrived in Butte they were ready for us. I’ve never seen an emergency room crew work so fast and efficiently. Becky was taken in for a scan, while they checked out Spencer. Soon they informed me that Becky had a C4 burst fracture. This meant that the 4^th vertebrae down from her skull had been crushed as the vehicle impacted down on her. They also explained that part of the bones of that vertebrae were putting pressure on the left side of her spine, and that they would have to go in and remove it, fuse the 3^rd and 5^th vertebrae together with a metal plate, and put a bone strut in to replace the 4^th.

It was about midnight when they started working on her, and it wasn’t until about 3 in the morning that her surgeon, Dr. Pete Sorini, came in and told me that the surgery went well. He explained the procedure, told me that Becky had an incomplete spinal injury and that she had some movement on her right side, which is good. He also said that her left side was weak but would come back over time. Then he said with full confidence, “She will walk! I’m sure she’ll walk again.” What amazing words to hear so soon after her injury, “She will walk again!”

Becky spent 3 days in ICU on a ventilator. I once tried to teach Becky how to snorkel, but she despises breathing through a tube, so I knew the ventilator was driving her nuts. Any time she was awake she was trying to pull it out. They tied her hands down, so she started figuring out how to push it out with her tongue and teeth. When that didn’t work, she almost pushed herself up over the top of the bed with her right leg! (A good sign to back the Doctor’s prediction that she would walk again.) Remembering one of her favorite scriptures, one she had spoken on many times, I wrote Joshua 1:9 on a piece of paper and put it on the television above her bed. It reads, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you….”^[1] (I left out the “wherever you go” part, because I didn’t want her to think she was dying.)

Becky was on the drug Versed. Versed causes amnesia which wipes out short term memory, so every time she woke up we had to start out all over again, “Do you know why you’re here?”

She would shake her head, “No.”

“You were in an accident, you fell asleep and rolled the Jeep….but everyone’s OK….” We did this routine for several days, and I was hoping the text on her TV would calm her nerves whenever she woke up not knowing what was going on.

On Wednesday, June 22 they took Becky off the ventilator and she was able to breathe on her own, and talk to us! It was then that we knew for sure that she was “All Becky.” She had her mind, her whit, her loving heart, and her passion for God. All the things that make Becky so wonderful were still there and I rejoiced!

Spencer had only scrapes and bruises from the accident and has already made a full recovery. He returned to work a few weeks ago and is doing great!

What a miracle this has been. I have gone from thinking Becky, Spencer, and Hannah were dead, to getting Hannah back first, then Spencer, then Becky. Each day, one by one, she’s more “back” than before. We praise God for his continued healing. As Becky recovers piece by piece, he gives us peace. Though we still face much uncertainty, we know we are in His hands, what an awesome place to be.  Rejoice with us in his unfailing love as this story continues to unfold.