It was around 11:30 pm. Andy was gathering a few of his things to spend the night at his friend’s (Pat) house. He said goodbye to my parents and then headed out. It seemed as soon as Andy had walked out the door there was a knock on that door. It was Pat’s dad telling my parents to get to the hospital and that Andy had been in a car accident. On their way to the hospital, they saw the car. It was no more than 2 miles from the house. At that point in time, just by seeing the car and how damaged it was they didn’t know what to expect. They called Johnny and I telling us to start praying and to get our friends to start praying.
Around 3 in the morning, the ER doctor came to tell my parents the news. From what they knew at the time, Andy’s hope of ever walking again looked very bleak. The x-rays were so terrible that the doctor could not even bare to tell my parents. She said that it was something she has never seen before. His spinal cord looked severed, but the results were inconclusive. His 6th and 7th vertebrae were literally side-by-side instead of vertical, he had 3 fractured ribs on his right side, his heart and lungs were bruised, his noise was broken, fractured cheeks bones, and many, many scratches on his face and neck. However, Andy did not have any neurological damage or fractures in his skull – that is amazing!
Before receiving this horrific news from the doctor, the paramedics who took came to the scene found my parents and gave them their report. They said that on their way to the hospital Andy was talking, like he usually does, but he did not remembered what happened. The first thing he asked about was the car and if it were ok or else dad would be upset with him (the reason behind this was that we had just had the bumper repaired 2 weeks before). After that they kept talking to him until about a block away from the hospital when he said that his chest really began to hurt. One thing that my parents remembered, after the doctor gave them her report, was that the paramedics said that he was moving ALL of his limbs! That’s including his legs! So after the doctor mentioned that the results of his spinal cord was inconclusive, they remembered what the paramedics said and believed from that point on that he was going to be walking out of the hospital, and refused to believe anything less!
It was about 6:45 am that Andy was transferred to TICU (Trauma Intensive Care Unit). After the staff helped to settle Andy into his room, Dr. Camponelli came to speak to the family in depth on his injuries. He, just like the ER doctor, was disturbed at the results from the MRI taken of Andy’s spinal cord. He said it was like nothing he has ever seen before. He also said that they were going to wait to do surgery on his spinal cord until the next day because it wasn’t “urgent”. Without saying anything, he implied that Andy being able to walk again was a very, very slim chance.
He took my parents back to see the MRI, not 2 minutes went by and they were right back in the waiting room bursting into tears. Watching both on my parents sob like that was the hardest thing in the world. In that moment we stood right in the middle of was our midnight hour. There was nothing in the world that could have been done to make that moment any darker.
The next few hours consisted of crying, praying, and mediating along with making many, MANY phone calls.
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