Wreck On The Highway (1980)

 

Last night I was out driving

Coming home at the end of the working day

I was riding alone through the drizzling rain

On a deserted stretch of a county two-lane

When I came upon a wreck on the highway…

 

It was another suburban family morning, as Sting would say. I had just gotten out of the shower, poised for another day of chasing the American Dream. My wife had already left for her arduous two-hour commute to the hallowed halls of learning that we in New England call “Hahvahd.” My two sons were firing up their youthful engines for another round of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Like the narrator of “Wreck On The Highway” was coming home from another ordinary working day, we were just getting started with ours. It was a day like any other.

The first call came from an unknown number. Who would be calling me now? I almost didn’t answer.

“Hello?”

“Scott, I was in an accident,” my wife said in an anxious and harried voice. “I wanted to call you first to tell you that I’m ok. I can’t stay.”

Click.

Despite her words, I could tell she was anything but ok. She was trying to sound calm but I could hear a layer of fear underneath. She was rattled.

I remember wandering aimlessly around the kitchen for a few minutes. I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea where she was. It wasn’t too long after she left so she couldn’t be far. Do I just start driving north on the highway? But she called; she said she was ok.

The second call came from a State Trooper.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Walmsley, this is State Trooper Richards. I’m calling to let you know that your wife has been in an accident on Route 95. She’s conscious and responding to questions. She’s in route to Rhode Island Hospital right now.”

A more-than-pregnant pause as I fight through the knot in my throat, “But she’s ok?” I asked.

“Yes, sir, she’s ok. But I want you to know that it was a very serious accident. Your wife is a lucky woman.”

More fighting with the knot.

“Thank you. I’m on my way.”

Our oldest son, Samuel, was in the shower. I told him that Mom had been in an accident, but she was ok. I told him that I had to go to the hospital and that I’d be home when he got off the bus. I did the same with our son, Will.

When I arrived at the hospital, they escorted me to her. I wasn’t sure what I would be walking into. She looked great. Sure, there was the expected neck brace, a temporary cast around her leg and foot, and the standard-issue IV, but she looked great. I worked around her tubes and braces and casts to give her a hug. I blinked my way through the tears, and we talked a little bit. We spent the morning together. I gave her water from a little sponge on the end of a stick. When she napped, I called the essential family, friends, and co-workers. I called the insurance company and got that ball rolling.

The doctors reiterated that Stasia was a very lucky woman. She had some fractures, some internal bleeding, and they were monitoring her spleen, but she was a lucky woman. I kept hearing this, but there was a disconnect between the words and my brain. She had called me on the phone. Everything was ok. It couldn’t have been that bad, could it?

 

There was blood and glass all over…

 

Around noon, I felt secure enough about her condition to leave Stasia’s side. I took a ride to where they towed the car. I wanted to gather whatever belongings I could from the car. As I pulled up alongside the lot, I spotted the car. Suddenly, everything went a little blurry and the magnitude of it all hit me. The little blue Ford Focus was virtually unrecognizable. My brain and the words “she’s a lucky woman” sure made a connection now. How did she walk away from this? How could anyone walk away from this? I found one door that would still open. Amidst the rubble I found some notes that I would periodically leave on her steering wheel. I found a shattered CD (a “mix-tape” if you will) that I had made for her. I picked the shards of glass out of one of her favorite sweatshirts.

I went back to my car and sat there for a minute. I needed to hear her voice, to make sure that seeing her at the hospital that morning wasn’t just a dream. I needed to hear her voice to make sure that she really did walk away from that heap of metal that I just saw. I called her hospital room. When she answered I couldn’t really get any words out, but at least I knew she was ok.

 

As the rain tumbled down hard and cold

I seen a young man lying by the side of the road

He cried Mister, won’t you help me please…

 

As Stasia recovered, she talked more about the accident. She talked about the people who stopped to help her. She talked about how important they were. These were not cops or EMTs; they were just regular folks on the way to their own daily grind. They didn’t have to stop and help, they could have just driven on by. When I listen to Springsteen’s “Wreck On The Highway” now, I always think about the people who helped my wife as she scrambled to get out of an overturned car in the middle of a busy highway, not sure if she was about to be obliterated by an 18-wheeler. I saw what that car looked like and these people could not have had a good feeling as they approached to help. But they helped anyway. They helped her out of the car, they helped calm her down, and they helped call an ambulance—all because they came upon a wreck and knew they had to help.

In this ever-connected world of the Internet and social media, I wonder if somehow, someday, one of those people who helped Stasia stumbles upon this blog. Just in case they do, I want to say thank you. Thank you for helping my wife when I couldn’t. Thank you for giving her a reason to believe. Thank you for not just driving by.

 

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness

And I watch my baby as she sleeps

Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight

I just lay there awake in the middle of the night

Thinking ’bout the wreck on the highway….

 

The first few nights after she came home were tough. Sleep was not easy, and would come sporadically. But when she was asleep, just like the narrator in “Wreck On The Highway,” I would just watch her. And I’d think about everything that had happened. I’d think about how thankful I was that the State Trooper called me on the phone as opposed to knocking on my door bearing much worse news. I’d think about seeing the car, and about how right everyone was when they said she was lucky. I would think about these things while I watched her sleep.

My wife is lucky. But she is also something else: fiercely strong. This accident took the strongest woman I know and made her stronger. She rehabbed like a champion. From the early days of making wine-cork wreaths and crocheting scarfs and hats to lift her spirits when she was couch-bound, to the latter days of building up strength through exercise and physical therapy, she persevered. She made goals and worked toward them. One of those goals is to finish the New York City Marathon, which she is running on Sunday November 2 (you can follow along with her training at the best blog on the Internet www.26point2before40.com).

When she crosses the finish line in Central Park in November, I will no doubt think of the phone call that morning from the unknown number. And I will think of the kindness of strangers, who, like the narrator in “Wreck On The Highway,” refused to drive past. And I will think of this song and what it now means to me. And I will be so proud of my hero.

UPDATE: Exactly one year ago today, on November 2^nd, 2014, my wife finished the New York City Marathon. In biting cold and brutal winds (race officials moved the start of the wheelchair competition from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in Staten Island to Brooklyn for fear the athletes would be blown over by the winds), she navigated her way through all five boroughs leaving the likes of Terri Hatcher and Tiki Barber in her wake.

Along with a traveling circus of family members and supporters all clad in bright orange sweatshirts, we were able to see Stasia three times along the route: once in Brooklyn and twice in Manhattan. We held our homemade signs high and proud, and we supplied her with some energy chews to munch on. She looked strong. Most of all, though, she looked happy. Can you imagine being happy while running 26.2 miles?

After the race, I thought about the morning of the accident. I thought about the kindness of strangers. I thought about the song Wreck On The Highway. I thought about how far she had come: from crutches and physical therapy, to long training runs in the heat of August and even longer runs when the weather got cold and dark. Through it all, she remained determined.

One year ago today, all that hard work and determination paid off on a blustery day in Central Park. And I’m reminded of how after the accident, when reflecting on what could have been, Stasia wrote about why she runs. Her answer? “I run because I almost couldn’t.”

My hero.

“Wreck On The Highway” is the closing track to Bruce Springsteen’s 1980 double-album The River.