|
October 2, 2003
was a beautiful fall day in south Arkansas, temperatures were in the 80's sun was shinning bright, and I was feeling great.
My wife and I own and operate Honey Do's Home Repair Service in south Arkansas. It's a small service doing painting remodeling
and repair at a reasonable rate across Ashley County Arkansas. We have a decent customer base and are usually fairly booked
up. All that was about to change. That day, Julie and I were working on 2 different projects, I was wrapping up an office
remodel for our insurance agent, and she was starting an interior paint job, where we were planning on working for the next
2 weeks. During my breaks at the wrap up, waiting on stuff to dry etc. I was doing estimates for future work. During the day
I had probably driven about 60 miles and was ready to call it a day by 2:30 pm when we ended up back on one job. I should
point out at this point that my wife and I at this time owned 2 vehicles. We own a 98 Toyota Tacoma extra cab p/u that we
use as our work truck, and owned a 1990 fully customized Chevy suburban, The suburban was fully loaded and was build on an
ambulance chassis with extended roof and length, a real heavy duty rig, and loaded to the gills. It was in mint condition,
low mileage and a really strong older truck. It was our travel and family truck. We had even taken it to Florida and Walt
Disney World in July of 03, and even at 12 years old it got good mileage and was an easy ride across country. That morning
when we realized we would be on separate jobs, I decided to let Julie keep the Toyota and I, since I was doing estimates and
clean work would take the suburban. When I came home after it, I noticed the seat belt wouldn’t latch on the drivers
side, there appeared to be some trash in the latch and just wouldn’t quite latch up. No big deal, I'll fix it this evening
when I get home. Right little did I know- I would never drive that rig home again. My day would end in tragedy. After doing
4 estimates and finishing up a small project around 2:30p.m. We called it a day. My wife brought the Toyota home; I drove
a friend that was helping us that day home. We, my friend and I, discussed a squeak in one of my truck doors and he was going
to fix it the next day for me. After I dropped him off, I took a round about way back to town. I drove by and checked some
paint at the insurance office, and then as I was leaving there, I noticed school was letting out. That caused me to reroute
my trip home. For some reason I took the long way. I went east 3 blocks to a residential street, instead of west one block
to Main Street. Our house is less than 400 ft off Main Street, on the opposite end of town from where I was. About halfway
down, towards home, I made the decision to reroute over to Main, again no reason, just happened to turn that way. Was by no
means a reasonable route, it added 5 blocks to the trip, and there was no reason for me to back track like that. I was putting
myself into school traffic, and for no real reason. As I made that turn I reached across my truck and put out a cigarette
in the ashtray, anyone who's been in that model suburban knows that it's a design flaw, the driver cannot reach the ashtray
while moving. Let me point out here now, that at the time I was a three pack a day smoker, I was never out of reach of my
Zippo and smokes. In my suburban, the console had a pocket made to hold those items. That's where my smokes stayed when I
was in that truck. Lighter and smokes in reach in console. Also as a smoker, there was always a full pack locked in the console
with the lid closed, if I opened that pack, I replaced it as soon as I got home. That said let me continue my ride. After
extinguishing my smoke, I turned up the volume on the radio- Uncle Krackers version of Drift Away was on- I love that song
always wanted to learn the lyrics, never had though. I turned right, back west towards Main Street again, and started that
way, I made it 2 blocks when I knew this car was going to run the stop sign on my right. I don’t know that I ever saw
her coming, (I've been back to the intersection, the intersection is blind to the north more than 20 ft if you are driving
west. There was no way to actually see her, but I knew she was coming. At that point I started a left hand turn and cut off
a carload of kids heading east, and scared the lady behind me to a stop, she had 2 kids in her car as well. I made it about
45 degrees off straight before the impact. This is about the point I remember my last action being to let go of the wheel
hit brakes and reach up saying" God you have to control this because I cannot stop it". That is my last conscious memory before
I came too 13 hours later. At this point, I'm going to start quoting the 2 witnesses that were there. They say that as soon
as she hit my truck, right on the front right hand tire, it folded my truck 45 degrees and separated the motor from the transmission.
I went out the passenger side window head first, and ended up hanging on the door with my knees in the window, my head resting
on the running board. My truck made a continuing circle and the passenger side crashed full into the front of a 94-ford motor
home, crushing me between the two trucks and my body taking out the hood grill and part of the front cap of the r.v. My passenger
door was unharmed so we know it had to be my body, plus the r.v. was dented in about 10 inches. As the two trucks separated,
my shirt pulled me free of my rig, and I fell to the ground, that's when the right half of my face was scraped away as I separated
from the r.v., and hit the pavement. I landed at the foot of the r.v. About that time her car bounced off a tree and headed
towards me. No one can tell me what my truck hit, or what hit it at this point, but some how it came back into the wreck,
and the rear bumper of the suburban pinned her car to the r.v. 18 inches clear of my head. Pictures of the accident scene,
and of my truck after wards are in the photo album on this site. . This is where we landed, her and her passenger pinned inside
their car, me on the ground with my face ripped open, and witnesses watching, including a couple kids. I am told that the
entire time, I was very calm, collected, was trying to reach my cell to call my wife even. A neighbor of ours showed up and
did that for me. The EMT's told me later that I helped them get my head held together, helped to roll onto the back board,
and was carrying on a very clear conversation. They took me to our local hospital, where the dr.'s determined that I was beyond
their assistance and had to be moved to a better trauma center. During the wait to find one to help me, I apparently talked
with my wife, telling her at one point she needed to call a couple customers for me and tell them "I'll be a few days before
I can drive any nails". I also remember, at this time, talking to 2 others besides my wife, and not all of our conversation
just bits. I clearly remember hearing an EMT friend from church telling me he wanted to transport me but couldn't, and that
he was praying for me. I also remember talking to my pastor and telling him that God had held onto me. I remember telling
my wife I was o.k. I remember the dr.'s saying "You're going to Jackson Mississippi, to try and get a glass eye put in.",
since they weren't sure my eye was salvageable. Apparently I rode to Jackson, where it was a 8 hr. wait to get me prepped
and into surgery. My wife with my parents, and, her adopted sister, and best friend, had time to reach Jackson and get a hotel
room and take a nap before I made it into surgery. I came too on the operating table, this was my first real memory after
the impact, I saw an Asian American man in a white coat, leaning over my face. So I said "Hello Doc". He appears shocked by
my voice, so I speak again, this time I hear a voice that doesn't belong to that face. The voice was a young white guy who
had obviously grown up in Mississippi. And I said so. Then this guy leans over from above my head, young white curly red hair
and south Miss. accent. I say that's whom I hear. The young dr. says, "I cannot believe he's seeing anything out of that."
At this point, I realized that the left half of my face was taped up, and I wasn't able to move. What I saw had to be from
my right eye. The Asian dr. then spoke up, he told the resident to test me, by holding up a card. I read the numbers, then
he held up his hand with 2 fingers pointing to my right 2 folded under pointing to my left and his thumb held out towards
top of my head. He asked how many fingers am I holding up. I replied "Doc I see 4 fingers and a thumb,2 pointing right, 2
left, and the thumb towards my head, but after all I been through, I need you to tell me which way is up." The Asian Dr.,
at this point, says, "Dr Moore we are going to save his eye, I can tell he is seeing us through that eye" He then introduced
himself, and the residents, and they started trying to get me put back out so they could work. They then took several hours
in the OR to reattach what was left of my eyelids, cover my glob (my eye at this point was an indistinguishable glob of white.
no pupil, no iris, apparently 2/3 of my eye was damaged or missing.) And trying to get my head sewn back together. I was cut
to the bone from about 6 inches above my right eye and over my ear, down in a curve to the bottom of my nose, across my lower
eyelid over to edge of my eye socket. That flap of flesh had been rolled back and was hanging loose over to my ear. Both of
my eye lids on my right eye were severely damaged, cut up and about 3/4 of the top lid was actually gone. They rebuilt them
that night for the first time. That was October 3rd 2003. I finally came home from hospital on Monday after the wreck. I got
my self situated and ready, thinking it was in good shape, on October 6th every thing looked good. On October 10th that changed,
the first time. That afternoon we had gone to a lawyer’s office to discuss whether or not he could help us. When we
got home my eye was stinging so we unwrapped to change dressing, That’s when my wife found the hole in my upper lid
where tissue was falling apart. By the morning of the 11th it had completely separated and was in 2 pieces. Of course this
meant a rushed return to hospital, and more or time. From the morning of the 11th till the night of the 16th they kept it
covered up and moistened, the morning of the 17th we went to OR for surgery number 2.That day they placed an embryonic membrane
covering over my eye to buy us a few days to learn what we were going to do next. We tried having the chief plastic surgeon
look at it, he was not interested told the ocular plastics guy that all he would consider was turning a flap over a prosthetic
and stitching it shut, there was no way my eye could be saved. (remember this statement, as it will come back to haunt the university hospital later.) We politely told
him to leave that we wanted a second opinion. We found one with ENT dept that was interested in trying to save the eye and
create a working set of lids. We then went back to OR on October 22nd to let him get started. That day they turned a flap
of fascia from along my skull lining above my left eye down into the upper lid position of my right eye. it was a little short
and they stretched it just a fraction,( 2 mm) was what the Drs told us. We found later, that stretched part wasn't going to
make it. A small hole started to develop at the lower edge of the flap and began to spread up towards center again. By the
time we determined what was going to happen next, the hole was almost 3/4 inch long and 3/8 wide. This was around November
15th. We managed to hold off the next surgery until after December first, and on December 2nd they turned a flap up that they
took from along my smile line from my chin up to my eye. This was the size of a finger, and looked like one, they left that
in place through the month of December. In January they started down sizing it to get ready to re open my eye. They separated
the flap from its base and reinserted it into my eye socket at the bottom on January 13th, This was to become my Norm for
the next 2 months. We then waited for 6 weeks on a piece of equipment to come in, an electrolysis machine small enough to
work on the flap at my eye. Once the machine came in and they Zapped the whiskers off, the Drs started thinning the flap,
under a local anesthetic in his office, thinking that once thinned and separated they could be ready to start on my eye itself.
We kept that up for 2 weeks then after thinning the third time, they wanted me back in the OR to separate the lids and start
getting my eye operational again. They ended up separating it on April 4th and we lost 50% of the tissue to shrinkage after
the surgery. We went back into surgery on the 13th of April and added more skin grafts to extend the upper lid. Again we lost
a large percentage to shrinkage. The Drs were at a loss at this point to find a way to shut my eye and make it operate. Finally
after a couple weeks of conferencing between the now three surgeons involved, they came upon the idea of adding tissue expanders
to my head and stretching the skin in place. We went into the operating suite on Monday April 26th, only to get bumped over
to the 27th before they were able to operate. Once they got in, the expanders were too large for what they wanted to do so
we had an emergency Operating room conference and ended up with one large expander instead located between my eye and right
ear, swelling that skin and muscle in hopes that it can be moved into place to expand and repair the tissue over my eyelids
a week after this surgery we discover that the lead surgeon on my team was transferring into a hospital I could not follow
him to, and that the least liked surgeon on the team would be assuming his place, at this point they continue telling us that the tissue could be moved, making it into eyelids.. This was absolutely the most painful
experience of them all. After 8 weeks of expanding this balloon each week, sometimes twice a week, the remaining DR. tells
us that he has decided that the transplanting would not work, and that at this point all they were willing to do was cut the
stretched area and rotate it, creating a permanent cover for my eye, This is not acceptable to me, so I asked if he had consulted
the original Dr., who was supposed to return for any surgeries they did on me, and what he had to say, to which the Dr. replied
oh I don’t need him, I am not calling him back in, you wont be seeing him anymore. So after he gets through telling
me that what was unacceptable on the first week is now my “only option” I told him he would never see me again,
that I would be finding new Drs, and not be returning to university of Mississippi for any reason, and that I would not be
really worried about him ever getting paid. He told me I was crazy, that I would never find another Dr. to take me mid stream,
and I would be back. I have not returned, by the time we left the parking lot
that day I had appointments with two of the best surgeons In Arkansas, at UAMS in Little Rock, they took over and while not
really sure where to start, did get my eye recovered, and got my face adjusted to a fairly normal look, after just two operations. They removed the stretcher, and through a little bit of transplanting and a little
rotation, were able to get my eyebrow into the correct location, and reduce a lot of the scarring, they were not however able
to start repairing my eyelids. After a few weeks, they told me to return to work part time, as they knew my health was not
going to allow me to work full time, they asked me to start learning to drive and function as nearly normal as possible, and for me to agree to wait 1 year on further treatment, because at this point the muscles in my forehead had been cut 13 times, and
were in need of a long term break to heal.
This was on October
2nd 2004. A full year to the day after the initial wreck. I did come home that day, and returned to work, unable
to do much, but was there. On Oct 3rd 2004 I finished the drive I started at year before, by driving home from
the location of the accident.
Now for a bit of "the Rest of The Story" As I said earlier I was a three pack a day smoker, and had them
close. After the wreck, in the hospital, I noticed I did not want a smoke. During my initial stay at UMMC my friends here
went to clean out my truck for me. The guy called me in hospital asking where I had hid my smokes and if I had been out at
the time. He found my lighter still in the pocket atop the console, but no cigarettes. Even the pack in the console was gone.
We figured some kid saw them and picked them up. When I got home I went through the console and sure enough every thing was
in my console but the smokes. This made my wife curious, and she decided to go recheck the suburban. She went out to the salvage
yard and went trough the truck. She found a few items in the truck, but noticeably missing were any signs that a smoker had
driven the truck. The smokes weren’t there, neither were the ashtrays, any empty packs, and you know as a heavy smoker
there had to be empties in my truck. There was no sign of any smoking ever been in the truck. And the best part, I went 11.5
months with out a cigarette after the accident. This was when she found out that apparently my body had broken the armrest
off of the captain’s chair, and that the brake pedal was broken off and the arm of it straightened a bit. This wouldn't
be strange, but There was no damage or injury to my body, other than minor scratching, below my neck. The only damage they
could find on my body and this is with numerous and repeated mri, cat scan, x rays and the works, was 2 cracked vertebrae
that appeared to have healed on their own many years prior by the amount of cartilage around them. I am now awaiting further
treatment; as I have no medical coverage available at this time, and no money to pay the Drs, that has been on hold know for
two years.
I look forward
to at some point getting my eye back up and running right, finding either away to cover the expenses, or a Dr willing to work
pro-bono, and for somehow my life to return to normal.
As for the Drunk
driver, who by the way walked away from the hospital where she was found to have no injuries she went to court. She got it
postponed twice and she tried to fight it. She faced several felony charges including wreck less public endangerment and felony
dui, also vehicular battery and at one point they discussed attempted vehicular homicide. She is faced a jury trial, and the
prosecutor hit her with criminal restitution, to go along with the 26 yrs and 25000 in fines received. The final judgment,
she has to repay me an amount of 168000 dollars, that amount of medical bills up to the court date, she was sentenced to 26
years 14 suspended, eligible for parole in 2007. With the sheriffs judgment set up, so that if she misses a payment, she returns
to jail for the duration of her sentence.
OK I can hear the wheels
turning,, What about the insurance settlements you ask? Well she had the bare minimum coverage on the car; it paid me a total
of 25000 dollars over the price of my truck, and personals, for a grand total payment from them of 31000 dollars. That was
used to pay our local Dr’s, the local ambulance bills, and for trips back and forth to Jackson miss. For the first month.
After that, we received 19,000 dollars from the Arkansas victims assistance program, which we used for living expenses, travel
expenses for trips to the dr, etc, for the next year. Our business has suffered greatly, being unable to do calls coming in
caused a lot of our customers to search out other people to do their work, and to date we are still struggling to make it
through. I am still unable to work full time, partly due to my eye, partly due to arthritis that set in during the year I
was unable to get out and stay active.
Why did my insurance
not cover the bills? Yes I had un insured motorist coverage, however just days before the wreck, my agent and I had discussed
the coverage on my truck, as we seldom drove it, we had asked her to remove all the extra coverage’s we would normally
carry. We assumed the truck would be mostly inactive during the winter, as it was the vehicle we used primarily for travel,
and we don’t travel I the winter, so I had dropped the extras like underinsured coverage’s. My agent did her best to try and find someway to cover me during all this, to the point of attempting to
file on the motor home, (no go, it was parked on the street, not being driven) the homeowners of the person who owned the
motor home, (again no go, as we landed on the street side of the sidewalk.)
Why didn’t we
sue the insurance companies? In Arkansas they are only liable for the amount of the policy, after that you may sue the owner,
but in our case, there was nothing there to justify a suit. And the insurance company did pay the full amount of damages written
in the policy.
OK I’m getting there, What about SSI, Disability, Medicare, Yes we tried getting onto ssi, but according
to them, I am not disabled due to the loss of my eye, because I do have 20/20 vision in the other one. They would not consider
the other former injuries, and when we attempted to appeal, working around surgery schedules, we were told it was too late
for any appeal attempt. I’m certain I could get a lawyer and get onto SSI, but I personally cannot stand the idea of
being told I am not to do any sort of physical work, that is just not I. I have to be able to get up, and do something every
day. We did get onto the Arkansas Medicaid program, how ever were no longer eligible when I returned to work part time. So that is my story to date. I now wear a seat belt every time I get into a vehicle
of any sort, I am able to work some, my finances are strained tightly as possible, and life is going on. I know several of
my friends have asked for this site to submit to various sorts of people that may be able to assist us in our struggle to
regain my eye, and I appreciate their efforts greatly. If you have any further questions, or would like to contact me personally,
my information is on the contact page of this site. Please leave a message on the machine should you not get an answer and
we will reply as soon as we can, Thank you.
Jeff and Julie McLemore
Updated June 16 2010
We have made a lot
of changes since this site was posted originally. We closed our business in march of 2007, as I was offered a full time position
at Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse in Monroe La. This has turned out to be an excellent career move. We now have full coverage
medical insurance, a regular income, and a more secure situation. Fianaces are still strained tightly, as we took a big pay
cut to take this job. Julie has had some serious health issues over he last couple years and hasnt been able to work. ad to
those a few flares of infection in scar tissue on my face that have kept me out of work, the cost of a 115 mile commute daily,
and we just have not been able to catch up to where we were prior to the wreck. I still have the scars and a covered right
eye. We are planning to relocate this fall to Hot Springs AR, after our youngest daughter leaves for college. |
