You’ve heard the saying, “Life can change in the blink of an eye.” Our family learned just how true that statement is on April 29, 2022, when my parents were involved in a head-on collision with a Chevy 5500 landscape truck. They were both transported to a trauma center in Columbus, Ohio, with my mother transported by care flight and my father by ambulance. Since Mom was reclined at the time of the impact, her injuries were far more severe than my father’s injuries. The head nurse on the care flight team explained that Mom was intubated while in route. When I arrived at the trauma center emergency room, I rationalized there was a 50/50 chance that Mom was still alive. My first words to the emergency room physician were, “Is she still alive?” With his “Yes” response, my family’s eight-month journey of sacrifice, tears, and worry began.

The weeks following her arrival at the trauma center were the hardest part of Mom’s recovery and included multiple surgeries to repair her spine, rib cage, and sternum. We made sure she always had a family member with her during the days she spent in the hospitals and skilled nursing facilities. We wanted someone there any time she came out of sedation. The only exception was two days before Christmas when a blizzard went through the Midwest.

Initially, the family was grief stricken as the extent of Mom’s injuries sunk in and we tried to contemplate what Mom and Dad’s life would look like moving forward. The medical staff encouraged us to take things one day at a time, and not to get too far ahead as the extent of Mom’s ultimate recovery was unclear and still many months away. We needed to focus on the short term. Although 100% recovery and return to the lifestyle Mom enjoyed before the accident was doubtful, the extend of Mom’s recovery would be determined by her response to therapy, surgeries, and treatments.

We found it vital as a family to seek out small moments of happiness and laughter as often as possible. Mom became a great grandmother while recovering from the accident when Austin James was born on July 6. Even though most of the hospitals had restrictions on newborns visiting patients, we found a way to bring Austin to visit Mom on multiple occasions, sometimes with the support of the medical staff. We have many cherished photos of Mom holding Austin James.

Initially, Mom had a ventilator tube placed down her throat, which limited communication to Mom blinking her eyes to make ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses. A tracheal tube was later surgically placed and opened up more communication through a combination of lip reading and use of a voice box. Communication with Mom was still incredibly difficult, but we found a way to have meaningful communication through a limited vocabulary. I remember a vivid example of Mom’s sense of humor when she tried to tell a joke to me and medical staff in the room. After delivering the joke, she assumed we understood her, so she immediately began laughing. However, the staff and I were clueless as to what she had just said. Mom got such a kick out of the joke she thought she had masterfully shared with us that everyone in the room began laughing at how tickled she was over her delivery of the joke. Thinking we got the joke, Mom laughed even harder, which was contagious as we also laughed harder. I still smile as I recall this precious memory.

The family’s emotional toll was not only a result of the extent of Mom’s injuries and her road to recovery, but was compounded by the need for a plan on how Mom would live the rest of her life. While Dad’s full recovery was likely, Mom’s full recovery was doubtful. We hoped for the best outcome, yet realized Mom would likely be spending the rest of her life in a skilled nursing home. Returning to her home was a small possibility, but would surely require assistance from trained care providers. Clearly, Mom’s life had forever changed, and the care she would require to live the remainder of her life would be costly.

Although my parents were insurance brokers and worked with thousands of independent insurance agents to secure insurance solutions, including long-term care insurance, to protect their clients, Mom and Dad never purchased a long-term care policy for themselves. They mistakenly assumed they had time and would remain independent, and assumed that an unlikely event, like a life-changing car accident, would never happen to them.

I have been unable to find any meaningful resources or verifiable studies related to the probability of suffering a life-altering car accident. Most studies related to car accidents are focused on the probability of suffering a fatal car accident. My parent’s accident certainly could have been fatal and Mom’s life was saved by the expertise of the care flight team. If we look at those statistics, the National Safety Council concluded in 2019 that the lifetime odds for an American having a fatal car accident is 1 in 107. This equates to a less than 1% probability of dying in a car accident.

Upon first impression, the chances of a fatal, or in my parent’s experience a near fatal, car accident are so small that many would rationalize this is not a risk at all. If you were in a casino and were GUARANTEED you have a 99% chance of winning at the roulette table by betting on black, how much would you bet? $100, $1,000, or $100,000? Knowing for certain that there is a 99% chance of the ball landing on black and a 1% chance of it landing on red, would you bet your entire life savings on black?

My parents were not at the roulette table and they were not going to double their life savings by coming to the end of their lives having avoided being in a near-fatal car accident, but by not planning for the improbable, they rationalized, perhaps subconsciously, that this was no concern at all. By taking no action, they decided not to put in place a plan to mitigate this risk. We all do this during the course of our lives. We rationalize statistics, probabilities, and percentages, sometime subconsciously, to determine if a risk is great enough that we should take action to circumvent the risk.

The problem with this rationale is that when you become a statistic, the statistics become irrelevant for you and your family. My parents became part of that less than 1% probability. They found themselves in a small pool of individuals who suffer a life-altering event and discover that everything they own and worked for was at risk.

The financial impact from their lack of planning became clear to the family in the weeks and months following the car accident. The risk that either consciously or subconsciously had been rationalized as so small that my parents did not need to take action had now become so relevant that action must be taken to save property considered as “family property”, income that was intended to cover both Mom and Dad’s expenses, and wealth that had taken six decades to acquire.

The financial impact was even greater when we looked at potential care Mom would need due to being on a ventilator. Individuals only stay in a hospital until they are deemed “medically stable”. They are then transfer to skilled nursing facilities for continued care. A skilled nursing facility with a 24/7 respiratory technician for care of Mom’s ventilator could cost several hundred dollars a day.

To say the family was stressed does not begin to explain the full scope and challenges we faced. We lived with emotional and financial stress throughout Mom’s ordeal. Financial decisions that should have been made years ago now needed to be made today, and today was the new deadline because yesterday had already passed. You cannot turn back time in a financial crisis, but you would give almost anything if you could.

Most often, the available options involved picking from the lessor of evils. The stakes included a family business property and the income it generated for my parents, an additional property my father owned where other family members resided, accumulated cash value in life insurance policies, 1960 classic car, and all their savings intended for retirement income.

By not planning for a long-term care event, my parents failed to recognize and appreciate the financial exposure to the entire family. They accepted the less than 1% risk with the expectation that the devastation from the worst-case scenario would only impact them. In reality, the devastation was multi-generational, impacting their children’s children.

The forthcoming, financial carnage as a result of the accident was a time bomb. My parents and other family members were emotionally and financially impacted. I will elaborate on this impact in Mom’s Story Part 2 and offer practical advice for your family that we have learned firsthand. Our hope is that should other families ever become a statistic, they will have prepared and protected their family to the very best of their ability.