All I heard was a couple of swear words from the guys behind me, and they were down the ladders before I could even turn all the way around. At about 4:30 p.m. on October 22nd, 2017, my father was in a horrific accident. He plummeted 22 feet, almost to his death, from the peak of our house’s roof, nearly half an hour before we were going to be done for the day.

There were four of us re-shingling from a hail storm that had happened earlier that spring. They had been up there since 7 a.m. but didn’t call me up to help until around sometime around noon. I opened the packages of shingles, and then slid them down to workers with air-nailing guns. None of us were in a harness, nor did we have any on site. My father, two of his friends and me, were working in sets of two to finish the shingling job faster. The previous day was the day my dad had planned to start this project, but it was raining and chilly. We had just gotten to the edge of the self-adhesive waterproof underlayment and needed to lay more before we could continue nailing shingles down. My dad had bought a brand-new chalk line dispenser to use just for this job, but he wasn’t sure if it was going to be long enough. As he was squinting through his bifocals, trying to read the package, he side-stepped off the roof. He struck the deck, rotated, and then landed on the ground with his arm wrapped around the back of his neck. His arm protected him from any head or neck injuries. The fall did indeed shatter his femur, pelvis, and sacrum. He also broke two or three ribs and dislocated a shoulder, the one that happened to be wrapped around his head. “I remember seeing the siding on my way down,” my father said. He never lost consciousness. The other two guys on the roof went down to the ground to check on him and stabilize his leg.

One of my younger brothers were in the yard raking leaves at the time. I don’t know if he saw the accident, but I know he heard it. I heard the sound when he hit the deck and then the ground. I remember the sound that he made just after he struck the deck, and then ground. I recall turning around, seeing the other workers fly down the ladders, half-running across the roof to the spot where he had fallen from, and the lying down on my stomach to look below at the three of them. I can still see the black underlayment in my mind as I was walking across to the opposite side.  I screamed at down my brother to run inside to get my mom to dial 9-1-1. She came out onto the small deck that my dad had hit when he fell. She was leaning on it, not knowing he had hit the corner of the railing. Side note, my dad had built the house, including this deck, one of many. When he hit the top of the railing, it proves he built it very stable. My mom called the number and within a couple minutes, there was a first responder coming up our driveway. That first responder was our neighbor from just down the road, Ed White. My mom yelled down, “Don’t worry Damon! Ed White is here!”

My father, knowing what Ed White does for a living, looked up and said, “You get the heck out of here! You’re not sizing me up for a box today!” The White’s co-own the funeral home in town.

Within the next few minutes, an ambulance had arrived with a couple of paramedics and few first responders. I had eventually come to my sense to get off the roof, so I didn’t fall off as well. My brothers and I were instructed to go inside while they loaded our father into the ambulance that was parked in our driveway. My mother didn’t want us to see or hear the pain he was in. They had a difficult time getting him onto the stretcher because of his broken bones and dislocated shoulder. From inside the house, I remember hearing the screams and yelps of pain as they tried to get him on the stretcher. He had landed on the ground, approximately four and half feet from the house. There is landscaping four feet from the house that consists of mulch and cement pavers, a small section of grass, no more than three feet in width, and then a square, step-up garden box with raspberry plants growing in it, surrounded by more brick pavers. It was an awkward spot for them to get the stretcher under him.

As the first responders were trickling out, my mom came in and told me to take care of my brothers. There were left-overs in the refrigerator, and she also said she would call with any updates. Everyone had left except for the two guys who had started the job. They were there for another half an hour, finishing to the point where rain or snow wouldn’t cause any damage to our house.

I tried to distract my brothers, but a board game wasn’t working, and the television was disconnected for the shingling project. My mom had baked a pie the day before for our new neighbors, the Williamsons’, just down the road. I was going to deliver it to their daughter, Ella, at school, but I thought, why don’t I take the boys and we’ll just walk down to their house now? The walk is about a mile, and I had already texted them to let them know we were coming. It took about half an hour; the sun was just starting to go down.

We delivered the pie, chatted for a little while, and then I got an update on my dad. My mother texted me that after his MRI, that didn’t go so well, they were going to air lift him to Regions Hospital in the cities. During the MRI, they were arranging for him to be air lifted to Regions Hospital in Twin Cities, Minnesota. My mom claims the trauma doctors were panicking upon their arrival. He had lost a lot of blood internally, almost seven pints, and they weren’t sure if they had enough of his blood type in stock. The radiologists were confused at first because an MRI shouldn’t cause any pain. After they all finally calmed down, and figured out how to manage this situation, the helicopter was ready to take off. My father claims the helicopter ride to the cities “…was like flying on glass. Smoother that you would expect.”

My mother did not feel comfortable driving out to Minneapolis by herself, so one of her friends from a nearby town, came over to drive her. My mom didn’t want us to stay alone that night, but prior to the updating call about the MRI, the Williamsons’ invited both my brothers and I to stay the night. I thanked them for the offer but told them I thought I should discuss it with my mother before I gave them an answer. Just as we were leaving to walk home, another neighbor of ours had heard what happened. They have children around my age and offered us a place to stay the night if we needed. My brothers and I chose to stay the night at the Williamsons’, where it was the first, and most likely only sleepover I would ever go to on a school night.

The fact that my dad could have died on the one October day, didn’t hit me until around three days later when we visited him in the hospital. He was a patient at Regions Hospital for about a week under observation. My brothers and I visited twice during that time period. The first time, my mother’s friend’s mom, the one who had originally taken my mom to the hospital the night it happened, drove us to see my mom and dad there. Crazy Carol is what everyone calls her, but her craziness was just what we needed in that car ride. She told us stories of her childhood to distract us, but who knows how much of them were true. The second time, my neighbor from across the street took us to see our dad in the hospital. It was a long and awkward trip, yet I am grateful. My mother was at the hospital and back home every day to take care of both us and my dad. She got rides from friends, family, and even my cousins’ boyfriend. Not once did she drive herself, due to how shaken up she was.

I don’t remember each individual trip separately. It’s all kind of mushed together. I remember taking the elevator up to orthopedic floor and nearly running over a nurse who looked exactly like Anna Kendrick. If I wasn’t so distraught, I might’ve asked for a picture with her. When we had all finally reached his room, he asked us about our day, as he would any day when we come home from school. I remember his voice being very winded from the broken ribs, but luckily, when they broke, they didn’t puncture his lungs. I recall him stating how scared he was to sneeze, and then knock a rib out of place.

Sooner than later, he was cleared to come back to our hometown of Amery, Wisconsin nearly a week after the accident, only he couldn’t come home to finish his recovery. Our house has twelve stairs to the front door, which isn’t suitable for someone with a broken leg. They positioned him at Willow Ridge, a nursing home in town. He stayed there for about three weeks, and every single day we were there. My mom was there from 6:30 in the morning until 9 or later at night, until the second week, when she set up an air mattress and started spending the night. At that time, my mom ran a daycare, in which she took almost a month from work, so she could take care of my dad.

Sometime during the first week, one of the families she did daycare for, set up a website like a Go-Fund-Me page. But instead of donating money, you sign up to bring a meal. So many people signed up, that there were two to three meals being delivered daily by local families and co-workers of my dad. Many people came together to help our family in this extremely difficult time in our life.

The best thing about the accident was all the amazing people that came together to help our family. Some people pitched in to have the rest our house re- shingled, people brought meals, and others helped my brothers and I clean up the shingles that were stripped from the roof. Many people and their families also came in to see my dad at the hospital and at the nursing home. My mom tried to keep a list, but there were just too many. Never-the-less, each visit was deeply appreciated.

My dad was so determined to get back to his life. The doctors told him he could probably be able to go back to work sometime around April or May of 2018. He was back to his job, almost full time, January 9th, 2018 with a cane. It was amazing to see the improvement every day, from being bed- ridded, to a walker, a cane, a limp, and now almost no side-effects. He had a limp in his right leg prior to the accident, due to arthritis. His should is not the same as it used to be, but he and I occasionally throw a baseball around to stretch it out.

Almost two months after his accident, I broke my ankle ice skating. I felt bad about it, because his medical bills were already high, and then on top of all of them, my bills. I still feel random pain in my ankle, and it has been over nine months since I fractured it. I cannot fathom how long it takes for a shattered femur to stop causing a person pain. His determinations to fight through the pain to get back what he once had, inspires me. All he wanted was to get back the life he almost lost.

I am extremely proud of my father for his positive take on the accident. He could’ve died that one fateful day, and I don’t know how I would manage if he wasn’t here today to encourage me in everything I do. I am thankful every day, and I try my best not to take any part of my time for granted. I am also doing my best to live in the now, not distracted by the future.

This story is true and was written as close as possible to the actual events of this accident. It was re-told every time someone new walked into the hospital or nursing home room.“Leave high roof work to the pros. No amount of money you could save is worth the risk of death or a lifelong disability from a fall.” By the DIY experts of The Family Handyman Magazine