Blasting With Boyles
On the 7th of July, I received a phone call that no parent ever, ever wants to receive. I was sitting down to dinner with some close friends, the waiter had just put the salad down in front of me and my cell phone rang. The voice said: “We have just taken your son Morgan to Denver Health and he’s in stable condition.” No more, no less.
I threw some money on the table, ran across the street to my motorcycle and had the longest ride from Larimer Square to Denver Health.
Everybody’s mind plays games and tricks at moments like that. I was not told cause, why he was there, what “stable condition” means, or for that matter, what was even wrong with him. So even though he’s a grown man, I think as all parents know, they are always going to be your babies.
I parked the bike in the hospital parking lot; actually I rode my motorcycle up over a curb, slammed down the kickstand and ran into the emergency room. I didn’t realize that you’re not allowed to do that anymore, and I believe the Denver Sheriffs (who by the way were excellent in their duty that night) told me that I could not come into the hospital through the emergency room.
After various U-turns and stops by personnel my daughter who had arrived earlier was there to greet me, but a young officer said, “I have to search you.” Now I understand that there has been gang retaliation or family retaliation or some drunken person who has come through those doors when they should not have. So when the young officer turned me away the first time he was absolutely performing an exemplary job.
My daughter had an emergency room pass in her hand and was giving me the information about what had happened to my son while the young sheriff was doing his search. On a one to 10 scale, my adrenaline level was at a high 18.
My son had been struck by a car while he was on his evening run. My son Morgan has become a marathon runner and it makes me very, very proud. He’s involved in business development for a young software company titled Face File, which will become a life-saving phone software company. He has really developed into a very fine young man.
We went into the emergency room where he was. His left leg was shattered in six places; his left hand was broken and he had two minor bleeds inside of his skull. He looked at me and he said, “Dad I’m sorry.” All I could think about was all that mattered right now was for this to end and for him to get well. I said, “Sorry for what?”
His memory was that he was at the intersection of Exposition and University Blvd., crossing over to run Washington Park. My son, who runs 10 miles every evening after work, said, “Dad I had the light and then next thing I remember is being in an ambulance.”
They had cut all of his running clothes off and they were all covered with blood in a bag, lying in the corner. He was covered with what bikers call “road rash,” scrapes and burns and a lot of bleeding. His arms and legs were covered and he had tubes and needles and whatever other life-saving instruments stuck in his body. We now know from the accident report (and again what a great job the Denver Police and EMTs did at the scene of the accident) that the driver, who has since been cited, blew a light and hit my son. There are witnesses to all of this and the rest of course will be settled by insurance companies and our family lawyer Jack Ratola.
But the real lesson here is the importance of family and friends and the unimportant things that seem to dominate my days. When you see one of the people you love so much helpless in an emergency room everything else in your world — divorce, radio ratings, maybe what I could call your place in the sun — have no meaning at all. I’ve been thinking about that night and the little boy who was so frightened 25 years ago after the murder of his father’s best friend Alan Berg (see last month’s column). Little league, arguments over grades, smoking cigarettes, ditching school, taking the old man’s car out without me knowing about it, his girlfriends, his mom; all of that is really just the fabric of life but not the meaning.
Thank God for the great surgical team that night at Denver Health, headed up by Dr. David J. Hak, who came into that room and tried to put my family at ease. The caregivers afterward in the ICU, as well as the nursing staff in the room that he was taken to after the ICU were simply the best. I can only sing their praises as I watched the care and love they gave my son. Maybe sometime or someplace, when this settles down, I’ll find all of your names and write another column. But until then, I hope most of you who were involved in my son’s accident will read this and know that I will never be able to thank you enough for my son.
Last month I talked about Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mocking Bird and I recall the final scene when Atticus tells Boo Radley in the powerful moment, “Thank you Arthur, thank you for my children.” So to the Denver Police, the EMTs and Denver Health, in the words of Scout Finch, “Thanks Boo.”
Peter