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Seven-tenths of a mile from
home on January 3 this year, 16-year-old Eugene Finley
fell asleep at the wheel. He didn't hear the blasts of the
horn from the car behind him as his car veered into the
left lane and left the road at 65 miles per hour,
traveling 200 yards before side-swiping one tree and
crashing head-on into another.
Just two hills away from the accident, Eugene's parent
Jeff and Maggie saw the ambulance and police cars shriek
by their driveway. Their oldest son, Chris - home on leave
from the Navy - had just left. In fear and hope the couple
piled into their truck and headed down the road, only to
be stopped at the first hill by a State Trooper. Eugene
trudged down the hill and over the next one. When he saw
the headlights he knew immediately it was his younger son.
By the time he got to the car, members of the Carroll
County Rescue Squad and McKenzie Fire/Rescue Team had
already cut the roof away from the wrecked vehicle. Beside
himself, he called his wife on her cell phone then headed
back toward the truck to stop her as she tried to get to
their son.
"Another 45 seconds and he would have been home," Jeff
says, choking on his words. So proud of his son, and
thankful for his miraculous survival, Jeff is unable to
speak of the ordeal that left Eugene in a coma for 15 days
without visible emotion. His 17th birthday was January 7,
four days after the accident.
"A lot of people think boys and girls will give you a
broken heart, but won't nothing do it like that," he
manages, gesturing toward his son.
Eugene admits he had been up two days straight, his
youthful ambitions more important than sleep. The night
before the accident, he and some friends stayed awake all
night, then went deer hunting the next morning. Eugene got
lucky, killing a doe that he then spent most of the day
pulling from the woods and dressing.
"By the time he got through messing with that it was time
to go to work," Jeff says, sounding half-aggravated at the
sequence of events that left Eugene too tired to work that
evening.
Nevertheless, Eugene had driven to the Jackson Bowling
Center in the 1994 blue Chevy Silverado he had bought from
his employer just 20 days prior. Jeff was the top-ranked
youth bowler at the Center, having made the Hall of Fame
twice for scores of 278 and 298 in a sport where 300 is a
perfect game. He had picked up the sport from his father,
who recalled drilling his first six-pound ball for him
when he was just four years old.
Eugene usually worked "midnight bowling" on Friday nights,
but his employers allowed him to go home when he was too
sleepy to work.
"I could have called my parents to come get me but I was
just too stubborn," Eugene admits doggedly, shaking his
head.
He recounts the timeline of events, as his father listens
intently, now and then clarifying events that in reality
Eugene does not remember. "He can't remember the first few
weeks after the accident," he explains, "Just what we told
him became his memory."
Jeff left the Bowling Center around 7:30. The woman
driving behind him as he headed down Highway 70 would
liked to have passed him, but his swerving led her to
wonder if he might be drunk; she was afraid if she tried
to pass he would run into her. Instead, she blew her horn
now and again to bring his attention back to the road. Her
last, desperately blaring blasts going unheard, she pulled
into the driveway just past the wrecked car and asked the
Clemer Garey family to call 911.
As the ambulance crew worked on Eugene, the rescue
helicopter waited at the crest of the next hill. "We found
out he coded twice before they got him to the helicopter
from the ambulance," Jeff says, relying on reports from
medical personnel who had been at the scene. "We had
wondered why the ambulance took so long to get to the
helicopter."
The 20-minute wait seemed hours to the anxious parents who
then headed to the emergency room in Jackson. "They got to
the emergency room at 10:00," Jeff relates, "and it was
probably one-to-two o'clock before we could see him."
Eugene had suffered a broken nose, a broken collarbone,
and collapse of his right lung. Jeff speculates the broken
collarbone and collapsed lung occurred from the force of
the seat belt as it restrained his forward movement.
More dire were the brain injuries Eugene suffered, with a
cracked skull and bruised left temporal lobe complicated
by the "shearing forces" that occur with the rapid
acceleration and deceleration that occurs in automobile
accidents, causing stretching and tearing of nerve fibers
in the brain, which, according to medical sources, are the
major cause of loss of consciousness in head traumas.
In order to control swelling of the brain, without
which building pressure might compress the brain stem,
which controls breathing and heart functions, surgeons
drilled two holes in Eugene's skull to relieve pressure
and drain excess cerebral fluid.
Eugene breathed with the aid of a tracheotomy and,
eventually, was fed through a feeding tube inserted
through his abdomen. Jeff and Maggie were advised he could
remain in a coma for three months to a year.
"I proved them wrong," grins Eugene.
One medical source defines a mild head injury as one in
which the period of unconsciousness is less than twenty
minutes and amnesia lasts less than an hour. A head injury
is considered severe if the person is unconscious for at
least one day and experiences amnesia for more than
twenty-four hours.
Eugene's family maintained a vigil of more than two
weeks before Eugene showed signs of being aware.
"When he was in a coma, every time I went in there I
would tell him where he was at, that he had been in a car
accident, and told him what might be like when he woke up
and to keep fighting," says Jeff, who stayed with his son
the entire seven weeks of his hospitalization, for the
first week or so sleeping on the coffee table in the
waiting room.
Then, Jeff reports with astonished thankfulness, his
employer, Midstates Electric of Jackson, arranged for him
to have a room near his son in the hospital and paid his
salary during his eight-week absence from the job.
During the quiet midnight hours, Jeff often found himself
at his son's bedside. On Saturday, January 18 at 12:40
a.m., as he made his nightly pilgrimage to Eugene's
bedside, Jeff found him lying on his side, trying to get
out of bed.
"Son, you need to roll over on your back," he said,
hurrying to fetch the nurses when Eugene complied with the
request. The nurses had a show and tell episode of their
own to share with the excited father. "Show us one
finger," they commanded, after which Eugene held up his
finger. Excitedly, Jeff carried on the game: "Show me two
fingers; show me three fingers," he said, then asked for
one again. "I was so excited I had to get out of there,"
he recalls with a wide-eyed smile. The next day, Eugene
opened his eyes.
As his health improved, Eugene notice his father would go
out of the room each time the cafeteria staff brought Jeff
a tray. "Why don't you stay in here and eat?" he asked.
"Because you can't eat," his father replied. "But I want
to smell the food," Eugene explained.
Meals became a time of education. Eugene would see, for
instance, the green beans. He knew what is what, but could
not think of the word for it. "What is it called?" he
would ask. "Green beans," his father answered. "What does
it taste like?" Eugene wondered. "Dirt," his father
replied with a mischievous grin.
Eugene was transferred after three weeks in Jackson to the
Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville, and
establishment Jeff says specializes in brain injuries.
"At Knoxville, those people were super," Jeff says with
Eugene agreeing the facility was "perfect."
"They treat the whole family," Jeff says, explaining that
evenings after therapy are spent in group sessions with
patients and families.
The first week in the Center, exercises focused on
balance. In time, Jeff says three people were helping him
walk 45 feet down the hall. "I was sweating like a pig!"
he exclaims, describing the grueling task.
Eventually Eugene walked on his own, then trotted, and
then jogged.
"He made me so proud of him," Jeff beams. "He didn't want
to stay any longer than he had to. He had an hour break
between occupational therapy and physical therapy and he
would stay there and work on his own, lifting weights and
stuff like that. When we got there they said he would be
there six weeks and he was only there four."
"Yeah, people call me a fighter," Eugene muses.
A few weeks after returning home, Eugene scored 275 at the
Bowling Center to put him back in the top five among the
youth bowlers. He looks forward to tournament competition
on June 21 and 22.
 He hopes to return to West Carroll High School for his
senior year in the fall, though he may need to catch up
during the summer months to attain senior status. He then
plans to attend Nashville Auto-Diesel College.
State law prohibits Eugene from driving until six months
after his brain injury, and then only with a doctor's
clearance, however, he reports happily, "Mom bought me a
new car. It was a beautiful truck, but now I've got a
beautiful car." His new vehicle is a 1996 white Mustang
with tinted windows.
"I've never wrecked a car when I was awake," he says,
defending his reputation as a driver, "and I learned from
my experience not to drive sleepy. I'm not going to risk
my life."
Besides the ordeal he and his family lived through, Eugene
has an additional regret: "I got to ride in a helicopter
and I can't even remember it!" he exclaims.
On a more serious note, Eugene says, "I want to thank
everybody for standing behind me and God too, because he
was the first one there."
Emotional again, his father says, his voice punctuated by
stifled pauses, "Even though all that bad junk happened...
we're still luckier than most... because without a doubt
God gave us a miracle twice."
Eugene is the grandson of Ted and Judy Finley of McKenzie.
Jeff and Maggie have three children: Chris 28, Eugene, and
Eva 21. |
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