9602090569
DETROIT FREE PRESS
961224
Tuesday, December 24, 1996
METRO FINAL
1C
Photo KARIN ANDERSON/Detroit Free Press
Jack Foley, son John, center, and wife Colleen make up the
family portrait that almost wasn't after a drunk driving
accident 10 years ago nearly killed John, a former basketball
standout at Northville High. Foley, left with permanent brain
damage, now says, "I am a victim . . . my own victim."
The accident left the Foleys' station wagon barely recognizable
and their son clinging to life.
MITCH ALBOM
DREAMS DEFERRED 1996; Second in a series on ; heartbreaks and hopes of unsung Detroit area ; athletes.
Copyright (c) 1996, Detroit Free Press
JOHN FOLEY HAS ONLY HIMSELF TO BLAME FOR THE
ACCIDENT THAT CHANGED HIS LIFE. THAT'S WHY HE CALLS
HIMSELF 'MY OWN VICTIM'
In his last happy moments, he was a guy you might have envied. Handsome,
athletic, 6-feet-2, water-blue eyes, a charmer with women. It was close to
Christmas and his buddies were out at the Goat Farm bar on Novi Road.
John Foley, only 22 years old, had a few beers with them. And a few more.
Maybe he talked about the glory days at Northville High, when he dunked on the
basketball team. Maybe he slapped a few backs and laughed the careless laugh
of youth. Then he went to another late party, did some more drinking. Then he
decided to visit a girl out in Ypsilanti. He got into the Oldsmobile station
wagon, turned the key and sped off into the darkness.
The next time anyone saw his eyes open was weeks later, when a nurse slid a
plate of bacon under his nose at the hospital. His mother and father stood
nearby, praying the smell of his favorite food would bring John out of his
coma. But his reaction was mere reflex, and his eyes quickly shut back into
darkness, unable to see the damage he had done: the shunt in his skull, the
cuts on his liver, the spleen that was removed, the leg that was snapped, the
eye that was blinded, the cheekbone and jaw that were broken, the internal
bleeding, the paralysis, and, worst of all, the damaged brain that meant no
more dunking basketballs for John Foley, no more pitching baseballs, no more
speaking or even thinking the way he used to do. He was only a few weeks
older than that last happy night.
Nobody envied him now.
Who do you blame when you are your own worst victim? Many a drunk-driving
story ends in death, and those are frightening enough.
This one ends in life. This one ends not in how you might leave this
world, but how you might rejoin it, damaged forever, limping uphill.
This one is the most frightening of all.
'It's just done'
"I don't know, I don't know. It's done, it's done, it's done. . . . "
John Foley is smiling, but it is a confused smile, his blue eyes blinking,
as if something might kick in upstairs. He sits with his parents in their
wooded home in Northville, speaking in a high, halting voice, trying to
remember the night his world collapsed. He remembers nothing.
"What about the sports you played?" he is asked. "Can you remember those?"
"It's done; it's just done."
"The sports you played?"
"Oh, basketball. I played basketball. Yeah. I could dunk."
"What other sports?"
"Track. Uh-huh. Track."
"What events?"
"Um . . . um . . . wait . . . " He wiggles his fingers back and forth, like
someone running. "When you go from here" -- he flops one hand over the other
-- "to there."
"Pole vault?"
"No."
"Long jump?"
"No."
"High jump?"
"Yeah, yeah, high jump, high jump. I went" -- he counts quickly on his
fingers -- "One-two-three-four-five-six . . . yeah, six, I went six."
"Six steps?"
"Six steps. I went six steps."
In such snapping flashes does his old life return. He has to count
sometimes, he can't remember many words, and you can see through his
still-charming eyes the terrible battle going on inside his brain. And yet,
this is major progress from where he was the night of that crash on North
Territorial Road, a collision so bad, rescue workers needed to pry him from
the wreck, then take him by helicopter to the hospital. At least once during
the 10 hours of surgery that followed, John Foley was headed for the angels.
His breathing stopped. The doctors revived him. Later John would ask, "Why
didn't I die?"
Sometimes he would add, "Why couldn't I die?"
His coma lasted six weeks. He was strapped inside an electric bed, which
tilted back and forth to keep his lungs from clogging. Tubes invaded his body.
Bandages wrapped his head.
Day after day, his mother, Colleen -- who had yelled a cheery "Be careful"
when he went out that night -- sat beside his bed, telling him family news,
hoping he would acknowledge her. His father, Jack, who had hoped to take his
son into the family medical supply business, would prop up John's hand and
pretend to arm-wrestle him, always faking a struggle before letting John win.
Maybe the old competitive spirit might stir him back to life, Jack figured.
This is what you do when you love someone; you try everything.
Finally, one day, after months of empty hope, Jack lifted the limp arm and
let his son win another make-believe wrestling match. This time, John smiled.
His father burst into tears.
Thus began an agonizing return to the land of the living; John's right side
was paralyzed, his left eye blind, his first words did not come for weeks, he
did not remember how to chew or swallow food.
He was still 22 years old. When he finally could speak, the words he
mumbled, over and over, were these: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Nothing natural
There is a photo of Foley on the Northville basketball team, rising for a
jump shot with perfect form, legs straight, arm bent, eyes on the rim. It is
from the year Northville played Detroit Cooley in the state tournament,
taking on future NBA player Roy Tarpley. Foley looks completely natural
shooting, as if he had done it a million times.
After the crash, however, nothing was natural. The closed- head injury
damaged the frontal lobe of his brain, affecting his speech, motor skills,
long-term memory, and learning.
Thanks to beer, the adult beverage, John Foley was a child again.
What is a sock? What is a toothbrush? How do you tie your shoes? A fork, a
comb, a pencil -- what are these things for? He needed to be taught
everything. His nurse would tap his leg rhythmically and sing the Michigan
fight song, "The Victors," and amazingly, John could sing along -- that, he
remembered. But when the song stopped, he could not form a word; he could not
answer even the simplest of questions. Somewhere in the deep canyons of his
mind, he remembered his life; he did not remember how to operate it.
When he finally came home in the late spring, he was moving a little better
and mumbling a few phrases. Wheelchair-bound, he could not go up the steps to
his old room. For some reason, this became an obsession. He would look at the
stairs each day with a sad longing.
One morning, his mother and sisters found him out of his chair, on the
floor by the bottom step.
"John, what are you doing?" his mother yelled.
He turned his body backward, like a child, and began to lift himself, one
step at a time.
"But John, you can't . . . "
"Watch . . . " he grunted.
One step, two steps, his arms straining to push his rear end another six
inches higher, his face tight with effort, grunting as he went along. His
mother was in tears. His sisters, at the top of the stairs, were crying, too.
It seemed to take forever. This was the body that once made him so popular,
that women admired, that fans cheered in hot and loud gymnasiums. Now he was
pushing up the steps backward, on his butt, like a baby.
Getting drunk didn't seem so adult anymore.
'My own victim'
Today, 10 years later, John can walk and shake your hand. He works at
Sunshine Acura in Farmington Hills, washing cars and filing papers. He can
make himself understood, but the words often come in spurts. "He has Broca's
aphasia," explained his tutor, Sherry Duff. "He processes what you're saying,
but he can't process what he wants to say back. It's up there, but it gets
stuck."
Still, Foley is clear when he needs to be. When he is asked to speak about
his experience, this is what he says: "I am a victim . . . my own victim."
He also says: "I have no friends or girlfriends. It's done. Everything's
done."
He wants you to know that life is not a movie, that everyone may applaud
your comeback, but few want to be with you after it. You're not as much fun.
You speak too slowly. You're not as sexy. You make them squirm.
"People hear me, think I'm dumb," he said. "I'm not dumb. . . . I just did
a dumb thing."
Foley lives with his parents, eats with his family, watches movies. He goes
to church, and prays "for my health." He is 32 now and can't throw baseballs
because he loses sight of them and they might hit him in the face. He can't
shoot baskets the old way because his right arm is still stiff.
He doesn't watch sports anymore.
This is who he is now, alive, here on earth, but far behind where he once
was. He is a man who learned his lesson and who swears he would not do it
again. It was just a few beers. Life did not forgive him.
In the corner of the house is a blown-up photo of John taking that perfect
basketball shot. "What do you think when you see that?" he is asked.
He looks at the picture again.
"I think," he says, "that's not me."
We talk so much about drunken driving in this country it is almost
unfathomable to think people still do it. But they do. All the time. And
despite John Foley, despite his walking hell, someone will do it again
tonight, Christmas Eve. Someone will contribute to the 41 percent of holiday
traffic fatalities that are alcohol-related.
Maybe that person is reading this right now. Maybe that person will swallow
a few drinks tonight, go into the bathroom, splash some water on the face and
figure, "I'm fine. I can make it."
Think about John Foley when you do that. Think about him learning to hold
a comb and button a shirt. And before you go, do one last thing, something
Foley forgot to do 10 years ago. Lean into the mirror and kiss yourself
good-bye.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
JOHN FOLEY; PROFILE; MAJOR STORY; AUTOMOBILE; ACCIDENT