No Accident

No Accident

by Melinda Booze and Dara Fisk-Ekanger

This Boundless article was originally published in 1999. Matt Newton and Tim Morgan rode in Matt's Ford Tempo, traveling the L.A.-area freeways to rescue a friend with car trouble. It was an early November evening, just dark enough to need headlights. "All of a sudden, there was a crash," Tim said. "We were sliding down the freeway. It was like a movie scene. Glass was flying. Tires squealed. The whole thing probably lasted only five seconds, but it seemed longer. When the car came to a stop, I was O.K., but I couldn't get out. I looked over at Matt, who was driving. His face was gory, like a big piece of hamburger meat." Headlights revealed–too late–an unhitched 22-foot trailer stretched across two lanes of 57 Freeway. Matt's swerve didn't clear the trailer, and it came crashing down on the car, crushing his face and arm. A witness called 911. "No one's moving in the car," he said. "Get here soon. This is horrible." Thirty critical minutes ticked by as rescue workers cut through the mangled metal to pull Matt and Tim out of the wreckage. When they did, Matt wasn't breathing. Two Strikes Kyle, Matt's brother, was among the first to arrive at the University of California–Irvine Medical Center. " Matt wasn't recognizable," Kyle said. "He didn't have a nose, and his jaw was so badly broken that his lips weren't centered where they should have been. His face was swollen round, but was crushed flat. All I could do was cry and pray." "This guy isn't going to live," the trauma specialist was certain. "It's a guy? I couldn't tell," an amazed doctor uttered as he worked to sustain the college junior's life. The rescue team had kept him alive, barely, and now medical experts left the comatose student's bedside wondering why they had been consulted. "There's no way we could make him look human again," one surgeon declared. In the months before the Nov. 16, 1997, accident, Matt had been climbing out of a slump. His mother, father, and grandmother had all suffered serious health setbacks. At the same time, Matt — Vanguard University's first baseman, leading hitter, and best base-stealer — injured his arm playing baseball. Friends encouraged the team's "sparkplug" to be more involved on the Costa Mesa, Calif., campus as a speaker and club leader. Some even teased him about being their Commencement speaker. He wasn't interested. Sports was his focus, especially baseball. A new baseball season was about to begin, and he couldn't wait. Matt was coming up swinging. A New Game Plan At the hospital, Matt lay unaware that his left arm–his throwing arm–dangled by a tendon. Doctors also found a spot on his brain and predicted brain damage. Family and Vanguard students gathered at the hospital to pray. Matt slipped into a coma, but the 21-year-old was not sidelined for good. To everyone's amazement, he lived. Five days after he was brought to the hospital, a mass of blood, pulverized bones, and a severed arm, surgeons reconstructed his skull and face in a 10-hour surgery. Crushed bones were replaced with titanium and steel. "Ironically, the first cognitive memory I have is waking up early on Thanksgiving Day," Matt says. "It was about 2 a.m. No one was in the room, so I didn't understand why there were tubes all over me or what the beeping noises were. I began to feel my arms and legs, and I noticed I'd lost some weight. My initial reaction was, 'Ah, Dude, I've got to get back on the baseball field. The season starts in two months. I've got to get in shape. What am I doing lying here?'" Matt felt the cast on his left arm, and thought, Man, that's weird. Where am I? Somehow, he realized there had been an accident. "Suddenly, God gave me an incredible peace," Matt says. "God spoke to my spirit, 'Matt, relax. I have you here for a reason, and I'm going to use this in an incredible way.' I didn't hear audible words, but that is exactly what I was feeling. I had my own Thanksgiving celebration. I said, 'Thank you, God. I know there is a reason why you've kept me alive.'" Matt remembered his reluctance to answer the call to help his friend with car trouble. He had been working on a speech for Friday Night Life, a weekly inspirational meeting for Vanguard students. "I had told God there was no way I would ever do any speaking. I hated it." Matt explains. "My life was sports. That was all I wanted to do. But earlier, when my family was suffering and I wasn't able to play ball, I was at the bottom of my rope. All I could do was cry out to God. I went to my dorm room and bawled, 'God, I can't believe this is happening to me. What is going on?' God began to revolutionize my life." Driving to where the stranded friend waited, Matt recognized that leaving his speech preparation to help someone in need was a great illustration for his speaking topic, obedience. "That's the last thing I remember," he says. Identity Crisis After the accident, no one imagined sports in Matt's future. Doctors prepared him for the possibility that walking might be difficult. His reattached arm was weak and useless. Plus, the brain spot could cause the 1997 All-American NAIA scholar-athlete problems any time. Matt's teammates visited, keeping upbeat attitudes. "We can't wait for you to play again," they agreed. Twenty-three days after the accident and three major surgeries later, Matt returned to Vanguard's campus physically fragile but emotionally strong. "My arm had been almost cut off. Considering the seriousness of the crash, I should have been decapitated," Matt says. "My dad mentioned baseball as he was driving me home from the hospital, and I told him I didn't want to play. I had lost the passion. Instead, God consumed my life. His presence was so real to me, that's how my life was sustained. For over two months after I left the hospital, that's how I lived." "Matt had been a spark for our lineup," baseball Coach Kevin Kasper said. "The team suffered from his absence in 1998." Matt settled for cheering hard in the dugout. And he became a regular speaker, traveling in the summer of 1998 with the Delivery Boys, a Vanguard drama-comedy team that targeted young audiences with positive living routines. Young people in 17 states paid attention when Matt told his story. "Nothing at all is assured in life," he told them. "We have to know that it can end very quickly. I was 21, and was sure I had years left to live and play baseball. There is no assurance of that. We have to ask ourselves, 'What is pertinent in life? What is important, relevant?' We need to get rid of the things in our daily lives that side-track us." Doctors who wondered how they would "make Matt look human again" did so well that Matt carries photos to show people the physical trauma he endured. "How God used the surgeons is miraculous," Matt said. "I don't look exactly like I did, but people can't really tell, I look so similar. God gave the doctors power to do incredible things." Senior Season Matt didn't plan to play baseball his senior year. He couldn't even throw a tennis ball. Roommate Michael Whitford saw Matt's arm responding to therapy, so in July Michael started tossing balls at Matt to test his interest. "He went through a lot of mental renewal," Michael noted. By October, Matt was practicing with the team three days a week. National media featured Matt's Jan. 29, 1999, return to first base. His reconstructed elbow had range of motion to throw the ball across the diamond. Three injured vertebrae gave him no pain. He contributed a double to Vanguard's 11-7 win. Coach Kasper summed up Matt's performance in that game: "Matt's back to where he was. Doctors are amazed. He will get better and better." USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles' KABC told his story to millions. There was another crowd who wanted to hear his uplifting message–his classmates. It was no joke this time; Matt was selected to be the 1999 Vanguard Commencement speaker. "The Vanguard community is a close-knit one. Everyone on campus knew about Matt's phenomenal comeback," President Wayne Kraiss said. "Matt's classmates felt a high level of respect for him that only increased when he stood before them at Commencement, saying, 'Life is beautiful.'" Using the title of the popular movie, Matt's Commencement speech emphasized "another dynamic that makes life beautiful. God is the center of life, and God makes life beautiful. "We can choose to become bitter and upset at life, God and circumstances," Matt says. "Or, we can be obedient and say, 'God, this is not fun, and I don't know why I'm going through this, but I do know that you are in control.' I have to be desperately dependent upon God. That is where my strength comes from. If I don't have that, there is no reason for me to even be here."

Copyright © 1999 Melinda Booze and Dara Fisk-Ekanger. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. This article was published on Boundless.org on November 26, 2010.

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0002366.cfm