Chapter 4 - The Accident

I broke my neck on July 8, 1961. I was 16 years old. That morning, I headed out to meet some friends for a day of water skiing on Pineview Reservoir. It was a beautiful day, as most days are during the summer in Salt Lake City.

Water skiing was a big part of my life. I had become a part-owner in a ski boat at the age of 13 with my older brothers Renn, Kay and our dad. It was a 16-foot boat with a Mercury outboard that we found in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. I got to go with my Dad to pick up the boat and that’s where I learned to ski. I got up once on two skis and then went right for the slalom. It came naturally to me and I got good quickly. Carving turns on the glassy water, jumping the wake, and just having fun on the lake. It was my favorite summer activity. I also found it was a great way to impress girls.

When it came to skiing, I was usually out the door first thing in the morning and back home before most people had finished breakfast. This day, though, I was off to a late start. I was searching for a girl to bring to the lake and it was taking a little time. Eventually I convinced one of my girlfriends, Peggy, to go with me. My older sister Ann, her boyfriend, Peggy and I made the hour-long drive up Ogden Canyon. We got to the lake late in the morning. It was just about the time that early morning stillness of the water gives way to the noisiness of other people. I was undeterred by the late start and happy to have a girl to show off for. The day was hot so I waded into the water and dove in. I took a few under water strokes and took in its coolness.

My cousin Keith had followed me in. He had a ball tucked under his arm and he threw it at me. I caught it and passed it back. I swam toward him and we passed the ball back and forth a few times. One throw put the ball close to shore and a wave carried it onto the bank. I ran after it, took a few steps and launched it as far as I could. I took a running dive in after it. The crown of my head hit a shallow sandbar. My neck jammed on impact and I felt it crunch inward. I knew instantly that I'd broken my neck. I saw stars. I was underwater and I couldn’t move my arms or legs. I needed air, but I couldn’t move.

When something momentous happens, we tend to go back and look at the variables so we can figure out just what went wrong. The late start was one variable. Another was my older brother Renn was away on his mormon mission. I almost always went waterskiing with Renn and we would take our own boat. Since Renn was in Norway, I gladly accepted the invitation from my cousin Keith to join him and a bunch of friends on their boat. We were on a beach that me and Renn didn’t use as much and it was unfamiliar to me. I didn’t realize there was a sand bar. It was nobody’s fault but my own that I broke my neck, but it hasn’t stopped me from thinking back about the what ifs.

It felt like I was under water for a long time. I was good at holding my breath. As I floated slowly toward the surface, I prayed for the first time that day. Truthfully, it was the first time I prayed in quite a while. Just as I began my prayer, Keith grabbed me under my arms and pulled me up onto the beach. He placed me on the sand on my stomach. My neck was contorted, twisted unnaturally to the right. As I lay on the beach trying to process what had just happened an older man, ran down the beach to see what had happened. He was insisting that he needed to jump on my back to give me artificial respiration. Even though I was coherent and breathing fine. I finally got mad and had to start yelling at the guy to keep him from jumping up and down on me.

At some point I realized I wasn’t shaking this one off and someone from our group drove a few miles to the nearest neighborhood and called 911. The ambulance arrived an hour or so later and the paramedics slid a board underneath me and loaded me up. During the ride down Ogden Canyon I remember one of the medics telling me, “It’s no big deal, they’ll put a cast on you and you’ll be fine in a few weeks.”

I knew I had broken my neck, but that gave me comfort, and I agreed. I was young and tough. I would bounce back. I had no idea what lay ahead.

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During the whole ordeal, I don’t remember anyone getting hysterical or crying or anything, including me. I came to realize later how close I came to dying. I had broken my neck at Cervical Vertebrae 3. In the 60s, most people with that injury died immediately or soon after. Christopher Reeve broke C-2 in 1995, and even with much more modern and improved technology, he lost his ability to breathe without a respirator.

The paramedics took me to the nearest emergency room at McKay Dee Hospital near the mouth of Ogden canyon. I laid there for several hours while they searched for my parents and a doctor. Being a Saturday, I guess it was tough to get a doctor to come in and operate. They finally found my parents and a gruff old orthopedic surgeon. He wanted to do a C-clamp procedure and put me in traction. My parents asked if they should get a second opinion to which he replied, “If you want a second opinion, I’m walking out the door and you can find a new doctor.” They didn’t get a second opinion and I’ve come to believe this was a mistake. A qualified neurosurgeon might have made a difference. I’ve felt some anger toward that doctor over the years, but that’s just another “what if.”

As they prepped me for surgery that evening, I remember the doctor joking around with the nurses and laughing. It was encouraging at the time. Maybe this broken neck wasn’t a big deal.

They injected a couple shots of local anesthesia in my head and the doc pulled out the drill. He bored two holes into my skull, one on the left and one on the right. I was awake the whole time and I remember the doctor joking and flirting with the nurses as he drilled. Next, he attached a C-clamp to my head, anchoring it in the newly drilled holes. With the clamp in place, they transferred me onto a Stryker frame. It was big, round, and built of tubed steel. It had a piece of canvas stretched across which functioned as a mattress. It was hinged at both ends, so after securing me with tied sheets, they could spin me from my back to my stomach. The C-clamp was then attached to a rope and through a series of pulleys, and weights were hung to put traction on my neck.

Many details of that day have faded from my memory over the years, but one remains very clear. I was lying face down in the Stryker frame after the procedure, and my first visitor entered the room. It was my little mommy. She walked in the room and stood to my left, looking down at me. Her youngest son lying face down in a steel contraption with ropes and weights and pulleys and a clamp embedded in his skull. All I could see were her legs and feet. They began to tremble as she started sobbing.

“Mark, what are we gonna do?” she asked.

I held back my tears. “Mom, everything’s gonna be fine. I’ll be okay and Heavenly Father is going to take care of me.”

Mark in 1961 following his accident.

#quadriplegia #1in10billion