Wednesday, about 10 pm, Don got a brief text message from his longtime friend Adrian. If you remember, Adrian had a heart transplant two years ago. Two years ago on Wednesday. Don immediately called him back. Adrian was crying.
Adrian and his lovely wife Margaret were going to the theater Wednesday night. They were celebrating the two year anniversary of his transplant. By the way, Margaret had open heart surgery about 3 months ago. She had recovered and was doing well. As Adrian and Margaret used the crosswalk, a car came down the street at a fast speed and hit Margaret. As Adrian watched in horror, her body flew about 10 feet in the air and landed on the hood with her head smashing the windshield. The car ended up several feet down the street. (There was a crowd of people on the sidewalk in front of the theater who witnessed the accident.) Adrian ran to Margaret who was now lying in the street, her face covered in blood, eyes open. He thought she was dead. He couldn’t find a heartbeat. But, thank God, she wasn’t. A nurse who was in the theater crowd ran over to help. EMS got there very quickly and rushed her to the hospital. And that was where we were when we first talked to Adrian, who was sobbing and in shock. We talked to him for a long time, doing our best to reassure him, but, of course, in shock ourselves at what had happened to our dear friend.
After a scan, it was determined that she has fractures on both her legs, her left leg had the most damage. She was going to have to have extensive surgery on that leg. She has five fractured ribs. Pieces of glass were embedded in her face. No damage to the skull or brain, thank God. Later in the day, after performing initial surgery on the left leg, the doctors discovered there was damage to one of the neck vertebra, so she has to wear a cervical collar. The first surgery was to insert a pin in her leg, but they won’t be able to do more surgery until the swelling goes down, which will be about 10 days from now.
She’s will have a long, long recovery.
Adrian kept repeating “She was taken from me” and “Everything can change in an instant.” He couldn’t sleep because he kept seeing her body fly through the air. Over and over and over again.
This happened at almost the exact minute that Adrian was wheeled in the operating room two years ago.
Obviously, this horrific accident has been our focus for the past two days. We are in contact with Adrian throughout the day, and thankfully, his son and daughter-in-law have come down from the San Francisco area to be with them.
I can’t do the egg cups today, but I’ll post about them tomorrow.
Please send prayers for Margaret. And Adrian.
They have been through so much in their time together. Years ago, Adrian and his son were in a car accident and Adrian had to be airlifted to a hospital where he went through a long, long recovery process. He almost died then. Then came the heart problems which lead to months spent in the hospital awaiting a transplant. Then Margaret’s open heart surgery.
Haven’t they been through enough?
Stay safe.
Happy Friday.
