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My accident happened on that very beautiful Monday evening at 7:02pm. It still amazes me that some dates and times stay with you forever. I was on my way home after going with a girl friend to let her experience frozen butterscotch custard for her first time. I had stopped at my office to see if my friend, (who is also my boss) Jennifer would like to go for a walk around Presque Isle in Erie, Pa. (that's where I was living at the time). She wasn't able to go so I thought I'd just head home and sit outside and enjoy the rest of what was a gorgeous day. I never made it even though the drive was less than four miles. It's true that most accidents happen within a mile of your home. I was only about one-tenth of a mile, if that, from my apartment. I was headed west on one of the busier streets in Erie, there had been a red light but it had changed as I appoarched. There were four cars in front of me, as I came to the intersection, and had the right of way, a woman driving a rather large custom van made a left had turn in front of me. I was in my new Toyota Corolla, it was my "baby." I had just bought it in March and it didn't even have a thousand miles on it yet. The truly strange thing about this accident is that as I was passing the Catholic Church that was near my home I felt like something was trying to warn me to be careful. I had no idea what it meant but it may be why I had put my seat belt on at the STOP sign just before I turned on to this road. The car had an airbag too, so of course I'd be OK, or so I thought. The impact was at about 40 miles per hour, I T-boned her van, my airbag went off, my seat belt locked and my head still broke the windshield. It's by God's grace and mercy that I am alive, or so they tell me.

Being that Erie is 10 years behind the rest of the US in medicine, the doctor in the ER sent me home that night. I didn't know until 4 days later that I had a severe concussion, a bruised heart and some broken ribs. I was so black and blue that my mom was afraid to touch me because I was in so much pain. I called my family Dr. and told the receptionist that I needed an appt. asap. He saw me that day. It was strange because a lot of my brain injury wasn't notice for a couple of months, I masked the problems really well. I went back to work sometime in mid July and continued to work for a couple months. I went on a vacation to Arizona in December to try getting away for a while to see if maybe I just needed to rest to get "back to normal." I have family out there, and as a matter of great conveyance so does my boss, and friend Jennifer. We flew out together, she was a great help, as I get very overwhelmed and anxious in crowds, and have a lot of trouble when there is too much visual stimuli around. It wasn't until our return flight that all hell broke loose. When we were descending into St. Louis I felt a "pop" in my head, I got very disoriented and Jennifer says my eyes got very glassy looking. I was having trouble understanding her, and just put my head down hoping she would just think I was tired and had a head ache. As we were taking off she tapped me on the shoulder to see if I was okay. When I looked up and tried to say yes, I couldn't get the words out. Needless to say, when we landed she took me immediately to the hospital, by that time the symptoms had subsided for the most part and the Dr. said it was probably just "jet lag"

I went back to work, for a couple of more weeks. My dad had begun to notice that my speech was slurred and that I had begun to stutter, this just kept getting progressively worse, and on February 3, 1996, while at work I was hit with what would prove to be my first of many "ice pick" headache. It literally knocked me to the floor, unfortunately (in some ways) I was in my boss' office. She immediately took me to my family Dr. who referred me for several test, he refused to let me go back to work until "we can determine what's going on here."

Well, that was in February, and although we don't have all the answers even to this day, I've was permitted to go back to work, as a "paper pusher" in Sept. 96. There is so much more that happen in my first year, besides trying to learn who I had become I had to learn to live life without my dad, he died very unexpectedly, so within less than a 12 month period, I lost my identity, I lost my career and I lost the most important man in my life. Since that time I have worked my way back to working 20 hours a week, moved into my own home, and I've been trying to help educate as many people as I can about Head Injury and Trauma. God has been wonderful to me, He gave me an employer who has done everything possible to help me succeed. He's given me beautiful friends, who have stood by me all the way and He's given me a new purpose and compassion for working with people with any type of deficit/disability. I don't take life for granted any more. There is still a very long road ahead of me, but I know now that I am not ever alone!