Normal is today; yesterday is gone
Normal is today; yesterday is gone
By ALLAN TINKER
The day, May 17, 2002, will stand out forever in Rhonda Boehm’s memory. The phone call from sister-in-law Lynnette Boehm; the sight of her son Eric face down in the ditch, still but still breathing in shallow breaths.
As most any mother would do, she knelt down beside him crying; then laid down beside him to keep him warm, along with the blanket Lynette provided. She held his hand and asked him to hang on and told him that God loved him. They waited together for the ambulance.
Eric was bringing the pickup home from the field, a distance of about three miles. The ND Highway Patrol estimated that he rolled six or seven times and was found some distance, about 75 yards from the vehicle, according to Rhonda. She thinks it is possible that he stumbled some distance from where he landed outside the vehicle before collapsing from the results of his head trauma. Whether it was speed alone or he was distracted in his driving, they will never know.
She stated that he had marks and cuts on him, possibly from where a seatbelt had been. They waited 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive before he was transported to Bismarck and the hospital.
Eric has no memory of the accident or for four months, until he was at Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. “Sometimes I wish he could see how far he has come,” she stated. “It is both fortunate and unfortunate that he can’t.”
