I have mentioned it here before, but never really elaborated much about it; not only do I plan on writing a book about our debt and the recovery; I have already begun. In what free time I have over here that is the project that I work on most. I have three chapters complete; two that I am happy with my re-writes to this point. The tentative title I have in mind is Debt Reality.

Months or years away from being published, I have decided to post a teaser chapter here for you. It is the first chapter and it sets up our five year journey to opening the Lazy Susan. Chapter one tells a story most of you have heard me refer to but likely know few details about.

Disclaimer: the contents of this chapter are copyrighted and the property of Joel Maxwell and may not be reproduced without my express written consent.

Chapter 1: 16 August 2000(The Evangel Story)

The summer of 2000 was one of the best times of my life. After leaving my dream job as a patrol deputy to return to Evangel University and finish my degree, I had spent the summer campaigning for Jack Merritt for Sheriff; an underdog, but well qualified candidate going up against a twenty year incumbent in John T. Pierpont.

On the 8th day of August our grassroots efforts paid off and Jack Merritt had done the impossible and won the Republican nomination for Sheriff, defeating the long time lawman; virtually assuring himself the office. It was an exciting time; I knew I would be finishing my degree in December and heading back to the job I loved at the Greene County Sheriff’s Department in January with a new leader and a new attitude.

Just prior to the election my wife Amy had found out she was pregnant. This brought on nervous excitement. She in the previous year had suffered two miscarriages. It was an emotional roller coaster to say the least, but all seemed to be well. She was working as a web editor at Evangel. Everything seemed to be going our way.

I had gone back to work on the midnight shift for Security at Evangel. Working for Gene Thomlinson was an honor; Chief as we call him, is one of the most influential mentors in my life. In 1996 with no law enforcement or security experience Gene took a chance and hired me to be the night supervisor based almost only on my attitude. I was honored to have the opportunity to go back to work for him.

Chief spent most of the summer in and out of the hospital with a health issue whose cause was rather elusive. Finally around the time of the election they figured out his gallbladder was the cause. After surgery and a short recovery, he returned to work on the 16th of August.

The 16th was a big day; Amy and I were planning a trip to St. Louis later that evening. The Cardinals were in town and there was a boat race that weekend on the Mississippi. It was going to be a great break before I started my last semester of undergraduate work. I was excited that morning as I sat and talked with Chief after my shift had ended.

That morning Chief and I talked in his office about his recent hospital stay and about the election results. The election was particularly a topic of conversation as Chief is also a reserve deputy and over personnel for the reserve division. He had been loyal to Sheriff Pierpont for the previous twenty years. He didn’t share my excitement in the results of the recent election. Little did he know as we talked that the events yet to occur that day would subsequently begin his loyalty to soon to be Sheriff Merritt.

As we visited, our dispatcher had taken a phone call. The call came from Bonnie, a lady who worked with my wife. Bonnie reported that a man was sitting in a beat up silver car with beer cans in the back and no Evangel parking decal visible. Evangel is a Christian university and alcohol is prohibited. It was rather obvious something wasn’t right about this. A few more moments passed when Paul Logsdon walked up to the window. He told the dispatcher about an older car that may have just been wrecked that had a shaggy guy and beer cans sitting inside. It was just past 8:30 in the morning and my shift ended at 8:00. I told Chief that I would check it on my way out.

In my four years of law enforcement and security work I had dealt with similar situations at least a hundred times before. I wouldn’t say I was complacent in approaching this situation, but I certainly felt comfortable. As I walked toward the car parked about a hundred yards from the office I called in the license plate to our dispatcher. As I suspected, the vehicle was not in Evangel’s database.

The silver hatchback immediately stood out to me as it was parked awkwardly in a spot facing across the street from the school. I could see a dark haired, scruffy man sitting in the driver’s seat staring across the road. As I approached the driver’s window in my uniform, I noticed it was already rolled down.

“Good morning,” I said as I arrived to the window. Startled, the man breaks his stare from across the street and looks up at me. I ask, “What are you doing?”

“Picking up my daughter,” the man replies.

“What is she doing?”

“She is in class.”

“Here,” I say.

“Yes.”

Knowing that school is not yet in session, I quickly realize he is lying.

“Can I see your license please,” I ask?

“I don’t have it,” he replies.

“What is your name?”

“Richard Jordan,” he says with some hesitation.

“What is your date of birth?”

“Ten, eight of sixty-three.”

“What is your SSN?”

“I don’t know,” he says, seemingly questioning himself.

“Wait here, I’ll be back,” I tell him.

I then step back behind the vehicle and take my cell phone out of my pocket. I am still a reserve deputy at the Sheriff’s Department, so I call the dispatch center to try to get some information on the vehicle and driver since he is not in Evangel’s database and is obviously lying. While I wait for the returns I watch the driver sit and nervously scratch the back of his head and shift around. I am becoming excited thinking I am about to find something really good.

While I am on the phone, Amy arrives at work. After parking her car, she begins to walk toward me, but I motion for her to go inside to her office. She looks over at the car and then nods at me and goes inside.

I get the returns, and as I expected the name and date of birth are not on file. The license plate checks to a four door vehicle with a name nothing similar to the one he gave me. As I look at the two door hatchback, I realize he is really lying about something. As I hang up the phone I am thinking I will find an ID on him once I get him out of the vehicle and he will surely have some warrants.

As I get along the driver’s side again and begin to re-approach I look in the back and notice a .22 caliber rifle intermingled with several empty beer cans and some other trash. The old beat up rifle is positioned in a manner it can be quickly grabbed by the driver and swung over the seat to fire. I realize right away that I need to separate him from this weapon. “Sir, I need you to step out of the vehicle,” I say.

Presuming he will comply with my command as so many have before, I step back just slightly to give him room to open his door and exit his vehicle. As I do this, he immediately reaches down and starts the engine. After a brief moment of shock, I quickly reach through the window and grab a hold of his head and start pulling him through the window with all my might. While I am pulling, the driver is able to reach down and get the vehicle in reverse with his right arm. As the vehicle rapidly starts to back up and I continue to hold the driver’s head part way out the window; he cuts the wheels sharply to the right while simultaneously pushing on my body with his left arm. Seemingly in slow motion I began to feel this odd force against my legs.

The next thing I notice I am lying on the ground unable to move my legs. I look up at the driver as he is shifting from reverse to drive. Our eyes make contact in a stare I will never forget. His tires then screech as he peels away. Realizing I’m hurt, I quickly radio for an ambulance. Before I have time to even think about it, I look up and Chief is talking to me. He must have run from the office he arrived so quickly.

As I am lying on the ground, I don’t really feel any pain, but I have the realization that I am not able to move anything below my waist. I know that I have been run over by the front wheel of the vehicle. More and more people begin to gather around until finally the first fire truck arrives, and then the ambulance. My first hint of the seriousness of my injuries occurs when one of the firefighters lifts the bottom of my left pant leg to look at my leg; his face appeared as if he had just swallowed sour milk.

Next they begin cutting all of my clothes off and start getting a splint ready to put on my leg. The first real pain I felt was when they began to splint my leg. It seemed to take forever, but finally they had my leg splinted and had painfully placed me on the stretcher and in the ambulance. Before I knew it we were off to the hospital.

Upon arriving at the emergency room at Cox South Hospital, I am surprised to see Jack Merritt, my pastor, and SGT Penland already waiting for my arrival. Chief and Amy quickly follow and are gathered around my gurney. The doctor and nurses quickly snap some X-rays while Amy steps out. When they put the X-ray up, I am shocked at how bad it really is.

About a third of the way up from the ankle, my left tibia is totally snapped in half and protruding through the skin. At my left knee, the tibeal plateau has been crushed with several pieces of bone that have protruded through the skin and some that are missing. My right leg has been run over as well and is badly bruised; however no apparent breaks. There is also a gash on my right wrist.

Jack Merritt then says a prayer for me and I am taken to a surgery prep room. I remember asking the nurse for some pain medication. After she puts something in my IV I asked if the room was supposed to be spinning. She told me to close my eyes.

Ten hours later I woke up to the worst pain I have ever felt, centered on my left leg; however, radiating throughout my entire body. I recall first being in an elevator and then being pushed to a room.

I had spent six hours in surgery. During the surgery a rod was inserted from the top of knee all the way down to the ankle in my left tibia. Three screws were used to lock it in place; two inserted horizontally near my ankle, and one about a third of the way down from my knee. A very delicate bone graft was performed on the top of my tibeal plateau and was locked in place with two very large screws placed horizontally across the top of the knee.

Upon arriving in the room, I experienced the most painful thing I ever have; they moved me from the bed I was on into a bed in the room. Once settled in the bed, they showed me the button to push for Demoril. It only released the strong pain killer once every ten minutes and would make a tone when I pushed the button if the appropriate time had elapsed. Demoril’s side effects were difficult for me. I was in a partially sedated state, dozing off for seconds at a time, then waking up thinking it had been minutes. Because of the perceived time lapse, every few seconds I would hit the button, hoping for the tone. This process continued for a couple of days.

That first evening there were several people at the hospital who had been waiting for hours to see me. The side effects from the Demoril were too powerful, and caused me to have extreme nausea. Amy told everyone that I was too sick and needed rest and that they should come back tomorrow.

Not long after that Amy began to have severe morning sickness due to her pregnancy, and Chief who was also still in the room was not feeling well either since his surgery was so recent. Jack the only other one in the room with me told the two that they should go get some rest and he would stay at the hospital until Amy made it back in the morning.

Soon after the two left my nausea turned into nearly continuous vomiting. I was so weak that I wasn’t able to hold onto anything, and was just barely able to turn my head. Because of this, Jack spent most of the night holding a bowl for me as my vomiting turned to dry heaves. He stayed up all night long, talking to me and taking care of me. Finally the morning came and there was a shift change. Jack alerted the nurse to the problems I was having, and the nurse gave me some anti-nausea medicine and switched me from Demoril to Morphine. After the night we had together, I had a whole new respect for Jack, and so did several other people in our lives.

Amy and Chief both arrived back to the hospital early the next morning. I was feeling much better by then, but still weak. I was able to drink some water again, but it would be a few days before I would have the strength to eat.

Over the course of the next five days I would have over 250 visitors. Most of the visitors were law enforcement officers that I knew well and faculty and staff from Evangel. My dad drove up from Texas and became one of the regulars in the room with Amy, Jack and Chief.

One of the visitors was of particular interest. He was an attorney and professor at Evangel. He told Amy and me about how our auto insurance could be used to pay for anything not covered by workman’s compensation; particularly pain and suffering. He also brought our attention to the fact that if we had multiple policies that we could stack the two maximum amounts and in effect double the amount we would receive. Since the driver had fled the scene and was ultimately later determined to be un-insured, this allowed us to use our un-insured motorist portion of our own policy in addition to the workman’s compensation.

Finally after five days my condition had stabilized to the point they were prepared to release me from the hospital. My doctor, a self proclaimed perfectionist, had told me of my uncertain prognosis. He said I would have to go at least four months without putting any weight on the leg at all. After that it would be at least another four months before I was able to get back to a near normal condition. He said my ultimate end state would be somewhere between not being able to walk, all the way to being fully capable of playing professional sports; all depending on how well the bone graft healed.

Once home, my hell that would be my next four months began quickly. I was unable to find anywhere except the floor of the living room where I could sit or lay without being in excruciating pain. I longed for a recliner or something with the support I needed where I could be halfway comfortable; but we didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the energy to leave the house.

Medications were also an issue for me. I had to give myself shots to the stomach twice daily, and I was taking several other oral medications. Amy and I also worried that the stress might cause her to have yet another miscarriage. All these dramatic changes sent me into a deep state of depression. I had been almost instantly transformed from an arrogant, in shape, powerful police officer to a weak, dependent, and lonely soul. With the questions about my recovery, I worried if I would even be able to work any job ever again.