Friends, I know that many people are stopping by solely for the purpose of checking up on Lars, and so I wanted to (with his permission) post this letter which he dictated to me a few days ago. It's long but it's in his own words so you'll appreciate it!
I also wanted to note that I wrongly said that he had "broken" his neck and ribs and in fact, they were fractured. But here it is from his own mouth:
Dear family and friends (or perhaps I should just say “recipients”),
The plan from June 13 when we were going to drive Joy on her way home to Big Sandy, TX did not go exactly as we had hoped for. The outcome now has become quite different. It was providential (one would say “miraculous”) changes on our drive. You might think it was a wild thing to drive to Texas but it was a plan laid out so we could have ten days on the road visiting old friends. Our first day was a long drive but it only took us down to South Delaware and we expected to spend two nights in each spot, giving Elisabeth plenty of rest and to keep up with her food situation (which takes a bit of doing with her). When we enjoyed the day with friends there, we took off at about 9:30 in the morning and we were going to Raleigh, North Carolina. We were about 40 miles from Raleigh when Joy said something to be about the fact that I was drifting in the road. It sort of took my by surprise and I over corrected, and of course then you’re supposed to take your foot off the gas and slowly get it back in line… but in over correcting I turned sharply to the right and then I overdid it to the left, winding up with a spin and then the car turned over and rolled off the embankment. I have not seen Joy’s photograph of the car, but our friend Bill Adair did and said it was pretty well bashed up. One of the providential graces that were given is that when we had left Delaware Joy was in the front seat. When we stopped for a rest break—especially since getting food and drink into Elisabeth on a trip is a constant thing to remember—I told Joy, “Why not sit in the back seat with Elisabeth and you can give her some drink and food while I’m driving,” which is what she did putting only me in the front seat. All of us were wearing seat belts, and had it not been for her moving into the back seat I don’t know what sort of injuries she would have sustained but she surely would have been sorely hurt. I lost consciousness for a little bit and I heard the emergency personnel say, “Cut the door open” (which I think was the front passenger door.) Then I heard them say “Cut his pants off and get him out.” Then they told me to lie still and that a helicopter was on the way. It came very quickly to the scene. One fellow told me that they were taking me to Richmond trauma center. I asked him about going to Raleigh, and he said that Richmond was one of the two best trauma centers in the State. He told me that my “Wife and daughter” would go to Hampton, Virginia. I knew Joy was okay because I heard her talking to the rescuers (since she is trained and has a desire to be in the rescue business it was almost as if she was a part of the team and she assured them that she was fine.) Nothing much was said about Elisabeth but I did understand that both of them were going to go to the hospital there. Fortunately, Joy traveled with a lot of clothing and different things when she came to stay with us, and of course we had our baggage in the car. Before we’d left, when we packed the car, I told Joy that I’d take the luggage in a second car because she wouldn’t be able to fit it all in. She was confident and said that she had already figured out where to put things. When I got out, sure enough she had mapped out places for things in the trunk and in the back seat of the car including a place for the wheelchair behind my front seat. So there was little extra space in the back seat, which I’m sure helped then to prevent the two of them from getting hurt. If it had been an empty back seat they would have been tossed back and forth between the two sides of the car. Anyway, it wasn’t long before the helicopter took off and we had about a half hour getting to the hospital. I settled into the ICU. As far as what I got out of it, was a concussion, three ribs fractured, the sternum cracked (or something like that), and the one that I would least like to have chosen is that the second vertebra in the neck was fractured. So I was operated on that evening and they put in a metal screw. Very interestingly, before the operation our friend Steve Price had called me from Wales. He told me the two choices I’d have; either I’d wear a “halo” or they’d put the screw in. I asked him which he’d choose, and he said, “Well I’d go for the screw; it’s an awful thing to wear that halo.” So that’s what I opted for, and next thing I knew I was in the ICU bed with a collar around my neck to begin the process of recovery. I was in the ICU for a couple days, then went into another room. My friends Bill and Jackie had come down from North Carolina and the end of that is that I’m now in North Carolina with them for a couple of weeks and we’ll see what the next step is.
The day following the accident Joy and Elisabeth were brought down to Richmond and they were staying with friends, I believe, because they hadn’t needed a hospital stay. On the 21st we drove a rather long night into about 1:00 am getting back to North Carolina where Bill and Jackie live. I’ve received a lot of calls, and I appreciate that. I can’t answer them all but I feel okay. It’s difficult to get food down because with this screw in the vertebra; it changes the route of the esophagus a little bit and you have to sort of learn again how to swallow. I can pretty much only eat food that’s not “rough” and of course I don’t have an appetite. My main concern is trying to get water and liquids down without them going into the wrong passage. The “elimination” process is always something I have to watch along with the pills that I’m taking. I’m walking okay; I’ve graduated to using a cane and I can hold Bill’s arm. (The last thing that one would want to have now would be a fall!) I’m sleeping downstairs and have no problem with the stairs. I just feel a little like Elisabeth must feel when we make her use the stairs for exercise! She, by the way, is staying with Valerie and there is another helper there also to assist with her care.
On the 18th, there is another helper coming in to replace Joy. She is the senior in age of all the lovely lady helpers we’ve been blessed by, and she was recently relieved from her job of caring for an elderly wife and husband who both died. (Trust that won’t be an omen that is carried with her in her next ministry to us.)
I don’t have any aches or pains to speak of. I did not take pain tablets every day as a routine; I may have had one day with some kind of narcotic. Of course I ache when I move my arms or with any sudden movement. The thing I wish would get better right quick is the wearing of the collar, but I’ll be wearing it for three months since any sideward or up-and-down movement of the head is limited. If you have a screw placed in and it is not healed there is the danger of moving the head and harming the spinal cord. So it’s just a little something to get adjusted to.
I won’t give you any weather reports… there’s no need for that and this letter is overly long and discombobulated. But I have to go back and say I’m thankful to the Lord for the way the car was flipped, which was on the driver’s side so it didn’t go on the rear section and harm the others. (Of course out of that came the concussion, which I’m not sure if I mentioned, as well as a few bruises.) They thought my left arm was broken in three places but that turned out not to be so… it was just a little banged up. I did have hallucinations a few nights and I think it was from some drugs that they gave me. The first one could have had drastic consequences in that I thought I was at home and water was coming in under the floor and down the walls, and I had all this equipment around! Of course I had all sorts of lines and cables hooked into me and I managed to get my feet out and get them on the floor, and before the fellow came in answering the alarm bells I had already taken three or four steps and started to do something when he got a hold of me. Of course he was one of the ones I’d not want to see again…he started yelling, “What do you think you’re doing, don’t you know where you are?” I gave him the correct answer on that and they managed to get me back to bed and settled down but it was an awful night. The other hallucination—I didn’t get out of bed—but I might want to write this one down because it was a terrifying dream yet with a message of light. I was in a room that seemed to be below level and there were stick figures in the shape of “L’s” and “T’s” and “H’s”. They were black and twirling around. I couldn’t get out from there, but I was looking up and I could see up high it was lighter and the stick figures weren’t there. I said to myself, “I’m in hell! This is hell!” I banged back and forth trying to get out and couldn’t do it, so I told myself, “Only God can get me out.” I can’t remember the song but I started singing. I heard myself singing. It may have been two lines from two different songs but one of them was the old Baptist favorite, “All my life was wrecked by sin and strife, Discord filled my heart with pain, Jesus swept across the broken strings, Stirred the slumbering chords again.” The other thing I said in my dream was “The cross. The cross.” I kept repeating that to get out. I just wish I could write it all down and keep it so I don’t lose it from my memory. I might try to do that.
Well you’ve heard more than enough now, and I appreciate your prayers and the phone calls which I’ve not been able to answer.
Anyways we’re doing well and I’m thanking God that this was not a disaster for Joy and Elisabeth both. I’m trusting God that we will get full strength back in his timing.
Love,
Lars for Elisabeth (and I’m sure Joy also)
The moment of decision:
We were late for church.
