How a drunk driving accident changed my life forever

I could not fathom the fact that the man who taught me how to walk would never be able to walk again

When I was in high school, I sat in health class listening to my teacher lecture us about the horrors of drinking and driving. How driving under the influence ruins millions of lives. However, as I sat there, I couldn’t pay attention. I kept having flashbacks to when I was six years old. I was sitting in our family friend’s house, listening to my mother tell me my father got into an accident.

It was the day after St. Patrick’s Day and my mother pulled me into the bedroom my siblings and I were sleeping in. I clutched Rufus, my teddy bear, in my arms as my mother tried to explain that my father was in the hospital. I kept staring at the carpet because I could not process the information.

My father was my superhero – I could not fathom the fact that the man who taught me how to walk would never be able to walk again.

A young and dapper photo of my father (upper right)

The previous night, my dad had been drinking with his friends. They thought it would be fun to go snowmobiling during a blizzard. My father drove head first into a tree, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down with a debilitating brain injury. When I saw him the next day, I didn’t recognize him. He was lying in his hospital bed with tubes all over his body keeping him alive. Despite all of this though, I still saw him as my father.

As my family was sobbing in the corner of the room, terrified to look at him, I tried to hold a normal conversation. I turned on American Pie by Don McLean, our favorite song, and talked to him about my day. I told him what I ate for breakfast and twirled around his hospital room like he was dancing with me even though he couldn’t see me. He was still my superhero.

My father eventually became conscious again and began his new life as a handicapped parent. After two years bouncing between hospitals, he was finally able to come home. It was hard to adjust to him being back – I thought having him home would make everything better, but it was completely different.

My dad and I at the annual BIAC picnic in 2005

I had to become a parent to my own father and help him with the daily tasks that able-bodied people do not even think of as being hard. He could not pick up a cup, make himself food, feed himself, or get around the house with ease anymore. I would love to say that everyone stayed positive and my father, above all the challenges, was optimistic and cheerful every day, but that is far from the harsh truth. He would routinely yell at my mother from frustration when she tried to help him walk again. My older brother could not even talk to him without getting angry because of his speech impairment. It dawned on me that things would never be the same. The change hit my parent’s relationship the hardest – after about six months of my father being home, they sat us down and told us they were getting a divorce.

My brother and I saw it coming, but it really affected my older sister – she could not comprehend how they could not make it work, and was blind to the fact that they were clearly not happy. My mother could not take care of her three children in addition to parenting her husband. After five years of speech and physical therapy, my father was able to get his driver’s license back. Today he is still in the process of learning how to walk again. My father’s motivation to learn to walk again stems from his deep love for his family. “I want to walk my daughter down the aisle one day,” he said, smiling.

My father drank a lot in college, but it wasn’t until he had a family and a steady job that his drinking habits became an issue. Alcohol caused the event that changed my father’s life and my life forever. I didn’t want to put myself or others in danger, so when I was young I told myself I would never drink.

Contrary to my previous beliefs about alcohol, I started school at a big university, and I started to drink heavily. Like a lot of schools with a big drinking culture, it’s part of a student’s life here. It was easy for me to fall into the habit. When I see my friends and siblings drinking excessively, I sometimes reflect on my own drinking habits. Am I drinking too much? Am I like my father? Is it not a drinking problem until after I graduate?

When I got to college, I was lectured on the dangers of binge drinking, but nobody ever lectured me on drinking after college. People tend to view these four years as a time of crazy parties and crazy amounts of drugs and alcohol, but people don’t tell you it carries over into the real world. What starts in the dorms can continue into the workplace – even into your future family home.

Being in a wheelchair has not slowed my father down and he is more active now than ever. He learned how to be more patient and uses his own story to help other people who have suffered from a brain injury. He is heavily involved with the Brain Injury Association of Connecticut where he leads a support group for fellow survivors who are coping with their new lives with a brain injury.

I used to be ashamed and angry with my father for what he did. It has taken me more than 10 years to be content with my childhood and growing up with a disabled parent. Now that I am in my 20s, I have learned to appreciate my father and the hard work he has put in to raise my siblings and I. I am no longer ashamed to go out in public with my father and have learned to forgive him for his actions. It is still hard sometimes when I think into the future at my wedding day and realize he won’t be able to walk me down the aisle, but whenever I see him practicing his walking, I am filled with so much hope that he will overcome his disability.

Or, perhaps, be able to overcome it long enough to walk me down that church aisle.

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University of Connecticut