And still... he gives thanks

Noreen Hyslop photo Robert Holt was the victim of a tragic accident at Emcon Technologies in June 2008 that rendered him a paraplegic. Today, the rural Essex man counts his blessings as he continues to adjust to life's challenges.

"I don't remember the accident. I remember everything about that day up until about an hour or so before the accident," Holt says of the incident at Emcon Technologies that resulted in him adjusting to life in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down.

Holt, now 48, had spent 24 years working on a maintenance crew as an electrician at the local plant when, as he was walking through the plant on an otherwise routine workday, he was struck by a smoke ventilation system as it dropped from overhead while a maintenance crew was in the process of dismantling the system to paint.

"I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," says Holt.

The pipe that hit Holt in the head was a section about 40 feet long, 24-inch diameter pipe, he says, that over time had collected considerable slag, attributing to a weight that was later estimated to be between 800 and 1,000 pounds. The section of pipe that hit Holt had dropped nearly 25 feet from above.

Recounting what a witness to the accident told Holt later, he said, "The impact folded me in half backwards."

A LifeTeam air-evac helicopter took Holt from Dexter Municipal Airport, and following an initial assessment, he says, the plan was to fly him to the Elvis Pressley Trauma Center in Memphis.

"I was bleeding from the head so badly, though," he explains, "they didn't think I'd make the trip and so they decided to fly me to St. Francis Hospital in Cape."

Holt's injuries were severe indeed. In addition to the gash on his head, his left ear was nearly severed. He had a broken neck, his back and hip were fractured; and the impact shattered his left leg.

"It's probably a good thing I don't remember when it happened," he says, reflecting on what he remembers of the trauma of June 2008.

"I remember talking to my wife, JoAnn, in the hospital," Holt recalls. "And I remember telling her that they just needed to let me get up and get back to work."

It was then that JoAnn Holt proceeded to tell her husband the extent of his injuries, especially the injuries to his legs and back.

"I told her, 'That's funny, I don't feel it,' and she told me that was probably because I was paralyzed, and I realized I was."

Following six surgeries at Cape, it was decided that Holt could receive rehabilitation care from Craig Hospital in Denver, a facility that specializes in rehabilitation for brain injury and spinal cord injury patients. On a ventilator and with screws and metal plates holding his battered body in place, he was flown by air ambulance to Denver, Colo.

"They sent me to the right place," he recalls. "I couldn't have asked for a better hospital."

Progress was slow initially. Therapists had to first get Robert accustomed to being in a seated position after having been flat on his back for nearly two months.

"They'd sit me up for an hour or so and then lay me back down. The next day they'd try to stretch it a little longer."

Holt says he learned a lot at the Denver rehab facility. He arrived with pressure sores that prohibited physical therapy for the first six weeks he was in Denver. Once healed, though, and when he was used to sitting for long period of time, therapy began. He was instructed on how to drive as a paraplegic, how to eat, and how to do the everyday things that most take for granted each day.

When he returned to his rural Essex home nearly five months later on Dec. 2, 2008, the obstacles to a life in a wheelchair were all around him. Within a few months, the family had a new double-wide home, granted through workmen's compensation insurance. Decks were constructed at the entrance several weeks later.

A handicapped-equipped vehicle was also ordered and now sits in the Holt driveway. Robert is able to drive the van, but he is usually accompanied by someone familiar with his medical conditions.

Although he was in perfect health prior to the accident, Holt says he now experiences a dramatic drop in blood pressure occasionally with little warning. For that reason, he always travels with a companion at his side. Still, he is able to enjoy the freedom of being behind the wheel, utilizing hand controls.

That freedom behind the wheel is one of the few freedoms Robert Holt still enjoys. He is confined to his bed until a home health nurse comes each morning to get him ready for the day. He has no mobility in his lower limbs and relies upon others to place him in his power chair where he spends most of his day. Nurses spend two eight-hour shifts at the Holt house taking care of Robert's needs, including dispensing medications, assisting him in getting in and out of bed, dressing, and nursing pressure sores, a common problem suffered by those with limited mobility. Where home health nursing leaves off, his wife, JoAnn and grown daughter, Tiffany, take over, providing not only for his physical needs, but affording him also the emotional comfort and security that only family members can deliver.

While Holt's injuries left him wheelchair-bound, he does have some use of both hands. His grasp is clearly limited, but with the help of special appliances, he is self-fed and can hold onto and enjoy his favorite drink--a cup of hot coffee.

Throughout Holt's ordeal...the accident, the surgeries, the rehabilitation and adjustments necessary for him to survive as a paraplegic, he somehow has managed to maintain a positive attitude. While others might have asked, "Why me?" Robert Holt has accepted his limitations and goes about each new day with purpose and direction.

For Robert Holt, the work of getting well just picked up from where he left off in his job of 24 years at Emcon. Always busy with a task at hand, he turned his energy over to getting better. That work ethic and positive attitude are perhaps why Holt is alive today, and for that on this Thanksgiving Day 2009, his family is giving thanks.

The Holts also are quick to give thanks to their friends in Emcon's plant who organized and held a fundraiser barbeque to support the family a short time following the accident. The funds helped to defray the cost of travel and time off work until insurance benefits could begin to assist the family.

"Sometimes it takes a drastic situation before you know how many good people there are out there," Holt says, "and we're grateful for all of them."