After Life-Altering Accident, Newlyweds Face Challenges with Bravery and Humor
The story of how Jeff met Kristin is one made of romance movie dreams.
“I was renting a duplex at the time. She moved in next to me on the other side. I went over to introduce myself and helped her move into her house,” Jeff recalled.
Their love story started at their front doors and grew as they fell in love. A couple of years later, Jeff proposed and they started planning their wedding. They were three weeks away from exchanging their vows, when, on a beautiful, late spring day, Jeff decided to go for a motorcycle ride while Kristin was across town at her wedding shower. She’d just gotten home when Jeff called her.
“It was a 23-second phone call,” Kristin recalled. “He said he’d crashed his bike and was on the side of the freeway. There was no urgency whatsoever. I thought, oh great. He probably broke his leg right before the wedding.”
The first of many miracles that day was that Jeff had, incredibly, remained conscious. He was still on his motorcycle, laid out in the superman position, hanging from the handlebars. “I pulled myself up and that was the first chance I looked down at my leg. I could see that it was severely damaged.” Once he got to the side of the road, Jeff and his bike both tipped over, yet he was still able to reach his cell phone. First to call 911, then Kristin.
When Kristin arrived at the scene, she recalled around nine emergency vehicles—from sheriffs to cops to an ambulance and a fire truck.
It wasn’t just a broken leg.
Kristin met Jeff’s mom at the hospital and together they waited. Meanwhile, Jeff remembered the moment he knew he was in bad shape.
“I’ve never been in an emergency room before, and they brought in all the heads of all the departments. I was laying there and they had the head of cardiac, the head of trauma, the orthopedic team.”
Initial scans revealed a badly damaged leg, but the doctors felt confident they could save it. Jeff went into surgery, and his mom assured Kristin she could stay and wait so Kristin could get home to take care of the kids and the dogs.
It was around 2 a.m. that Kristin received the call that would alter her life.
“[His mom] called me. She said, ‘I don’t want to have to be the one to tell you this, but they had to take his leg.’”
The muscle damage was too much, and none of the doctors anticipated how bad it was until they got Jeff into the operating room. The doctors were apologetic to Jeff and Kristin, assuring them they did everything they could. Jeff’s reaction to this shocking news?
“My first response was, that’s okay. I’ll figure this out.”
While Jeff’s initial reaction may have surprised many, it didn’t surprise his fiancée. “It’s just who he is,” Kristin said. “It’s just like him to be that optimistic.”
Still, they both had a battle ahead of them. The coming days and weeks would test that optimism. Jeff endured extensive pain as he recovered and went on to occupational and physical therapy. Prior to the accident, Jeff was in great physical shape, which helped in his recovery—but it wasn’t fast enough for Jeff. “I just wanted to get to the healing.”
The ups and downs of the situation made for long, emotional days at the hospital. All the while, friends and family members were constantly checking in and asking for updates.
“We had people randomly show up at the hospital who we weren’t expecting and weren’t ready to see,” Kristin said. “We needed a way to tell the world how he was doing and when we were next willing to have visitors.”
They started documenting Jeff’s journey on CaringBridge, allowing them the opportunity to provide one mass update without the burden of having to individually respond to everyone.
“I just didn’t have the energy or capacity to keep everyone updated, so CaringBridge was a huge help,” Jeff said. “I can’t tell you how many texts I got that were just understanding of where I was at in the process. It helped avoid a lot of awkwardness. People have the best intentions of wanting to come visit, but some days you’re just not up for it.”
Jeff needed support from his loved ones, but he also needed time alone to process and to focus on his healing. One day could be very different from the next, and using CaringBridge provided a boundary to tell people what he needed at that moment.
For Kristin, it became an outlet to express her emotions and work through it all as Jeff’s caregiver.
“For me to write what was going on was therapeutic for me,” she said. “It was nice to be able to tell the story not only of what Jeff was going through, but also of the caregiver side of it. Like, this is what we went through today. This is what sucked, and this is what we’re hoping for tomorrow.”
As Jeff progressed in his recovery, Kristin and their families scrambled to make their house accessible for Jeff when he returned home. The couple also had to decide whether to cancel or replan their entire wedding, which was just days away.
“Initially, I think in his mind, he thought we were going to have to postpone,” Kristin said. “Just knowing that we were both excited to get married, I did some quick research and asked him, if we could get married and it just looked very different, would you want to do it?”
It was another resounding yes in their relationship. And thanks to the grace and generosity of their loved ones and their vendors, Kristin had the entire wedding replanned in four days. Many of their vendors had been following Jeff’s CaringBridge and because of that, were already aware of what was happening.
Milberns, the clothing store where Jeff initially bought his wedding suit went above and beyond. “They custom made a suit for me that would work around my prosthetic,” he said. “They were amazing, and they’d heard about everything on CaringBridge. Having heard our story just makes it more personable, and it makes people just so much more willing to help you out. They get a little glimpse into what has transpired.”
And on a beautiful June day, Jeff and Kristin became husband and wife, promising their lives to one another through all the good and the bad.
For the newly married couple, there is so much good to be had. After spending time with a Paralympic athlete who visited him in the hospital, Jeff is helping others like him through his work with Wiggle Your Toes. It helps fuel his optimism, which is also on display through the humorous shirts he chooses to wear.
“Humor has helped us get through this. It could have been a very dark time in our lives. And the shirts have opened doors for people to have conversations with us,” Kristin said.
“The shirts have knocked down so many barriers with people who don’t know how to approach someone with a disability,” Jeff added. “It makes me happy because I’m okay telling my story.”
Jeff continues to use his story to inspire and educate others. CaringBridge continues to be a place where connection and community are fostered in the most special and meaningful ways.
When Jeff was in the accident, a nurse happened to drive by the scene and stopped to help. She used his belt as a tourniquet which likely saved his life. Because of CaringBridge, she found Jeff’s story and reached out.
“I had chills the day I got that message,” he said. “If it weren’t for CaringBridge, she wouldn’t have found my story. There’s no way we can thank her and her boyfriend enough for stopping to help, but now we get to meet up with them and thank them. Isn’t it amazing that there are angels that walk among us and she saved somebody’s life that day?”
For those who know and love Jeff, they know that nurse wasn’t the only angel on the freeway that day. Thankfully, Jeff walks among us and uses his darkest days to shine even more light on this world.