By Ashley B. Craig
Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail
Nitro Patrolman Jimmy Lee knows he is lucky to be alive. He also knows he has a long road of recovery ahead.
Jimmy, 26, remembers having lunch at Cracker Barrel with Patrolman Ray Blake on Thanksgiving Day, but everything else is a blank until about Christmas Eve.
He was directing traffic around a disabled vehicle on Cross Lanes Drive about 5:30 p.m. Nov. 24 when he was struck by a Ford Escape. Jimmy, who had been on the force about one year, was thrown several yards.
He was rushed to Charleston Area Medical Center’s General Hospital with a fractured skull and a blood clot on his brain.
He also suffered injuries to his limbs.
Nitro Mayor Rusty Casto said the odds were not in Jimmy’s favor Thanksgiving night.
“We didn’t know if he was going to make it,” Casto said.
The injury to his brain caused short-term memory loss, his wife, Morgan, said Tuesday at a press conference at police headquarters.
“From Thanksgiving Day to roughly Christmas Eve, I don’t remember nothing,” Jimmy said. “They say it’s something that will be permanent. I’ll never remember.”
Morgan, 27, said short-term memory loss is common among those with head injuries and her husband is lucky to remember the morning of the accident. Some lose entire months before their injuries, she said.
Morgan remembers receiving the call that Jimmy had been hurt.
“That’s a call nobody ever anticipates or wants to get, but once you get it ...,” she trailed off. “We got to the hospital. There were officers, firefighters, EMS. Everyone was there to support us and help us get through those really difficult initial days.”
From CAMC General, Jimmy was transferred to a rehabilitation facility in Georgia, where he spent more than three months trying to get back on his feet. Some days have been easier than others. Mostly, the recovery has been hard, he said.
“The hardest part of recovery has been accepting what had happened and moving on from that,” Jimmy said. “When it comes to recovery, there is no easy. Everything’s hard.
“Getting up and walking for the first time in four months was hard. It’s something I do every day now, but initially it was hard.”
Jimmy said it felt really good to be back on his feet after so many months in bed.
“Balance was off quite a bit, but after a couple of days I was fine,” he said. “It wasn’t as big a challenge as I thought it would be.”
He said support from family, friends and the community keeps him moving forward. He has seen the news clips of the fundraisers held for him and said he is thankful.
He is a private person but understands why he’s received so much attention and has gotten used to it.
Support from his fellow officers pushed him ahead in rehab, he said.
“Every time someone would come to see me, I would push that much harder to get discharged,” he said.
“We had hundreds of officers that came to the rehab center,” Morgan said. “Therapists would stop his therapy and allow them to visit because they could see his reaction. He would be so much more positive and upbeat and push so much harder after seeing his brothers.”
Jimmy and Morgan both said they couldn’t thank the community enough.
“Some days are easier than others, but the support from everyone has made it bearable and made it much easier to transition home,” Morgan said.
“They’ve made some of the worries we had initially - How are we going to pay for this? How are you going to get here? They’ve really taken that burden off of us.”
Nitro city councilman Joe Savilla cooked spaghetti sauce for two days for a recent dinner at a local church to raise money. The dinner fed more than 550 people and raised more than $7,000 for the couple.
Another fundraiser is set for this weekend. The Race for the Badge 3K walk/5K run will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. Registration will begin at 8 a.m. The race starts at the police station.
“We have a community that cares for its own,” the mayor said. “I’m glad he is back on his two feet and still with us.”
Savilla, whose son is a retired Nitro officer, said when he heard what had happened to Jimmy on Thanksgiving, he “stopped eating and started praying.”
“He’s an inspiration,” Savilla said. “The fact that he survived that night is nothing short of a miracle.”
City Recorder Rita Cox said the support was heartwarming.
“All we had to do was ask,” she said. “Everyone wanted to help.”
Jimmy said it’s still too early in his rehabilitation to determine when or if his doctor will give him the OK to return to work, but it’s something he hopes to do. He has three to six months of physical therapy left.
“I feel good,” he said. “Every day I wake up, I try to do better than I did before.
“If I walk a half mile the day before, I’ll walk three quarters of a mile this day. I’m always trying to improve each day. That’s my main focus and goal.”
He said it would not be hard going back to work because it’s what he is used to and what he wants to do.
“From the time he’s woke up, that’s what he’s talked about, getting back,” Morgan said.
Copyright 2012 Charleston Daily Mail