The accident “Unless work is properly directed, efforts are wasted.”

                                  “Unless work is properly directed, efforts are wasted.”

This adage helped me as the CEO of several technology-focused startups. I am passionate about my work and really enjoyed problem solving. I also mentored and coached hundreds of people who wanted to start their own business. "Enthusiastic vision is vital but unless the process of work is properly directed, much of the efforts are wasted". Little did I realize that this adage would also assist in my miraculous recovery from my TBI.

 I earned my PhD from Carnegie Melon University in the mid-1990s, technically in Mechanical Engineering but my area of focus had been robotics (since the early 1980s) and my dissertation looked more like computer science than anything else. Prior to returning to school to get my PhD, I had worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, again in the field of robotics. 

Years later, about 6:00 pm on 15 November 2019, while driving on I-80 in Pennsylvania, from New York to Michigan, a route I had driven numerous times, the accident happened. My wife, Dr. Lorraine Thompson, was driving the car, presumably at highway speed, when a large (300+ pound) male deer tried to jump over the car. It failed to do so and came through the windshield and according to PA Trooper Cody Klinger, the first police officer on the scene, there were no hoof marks on the hoodof car, so he believes that the deer’s first contact with the car was the windshield. I was told that the impact with the car killed the deer, but as it was dying, it kicked me in the head at least once.

Besides grave facial and bone injuries, I also sustained traumatic brain injury with a Glasgow Coma Scale index of 3. An article published in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery says “A Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 3 on presentation in patients with severe traumatic brain injury due to blunt trauma has been recognized as a bad prognostic factor. They reported mortality rate in these patients is very high, even approaching 100% in the presence of fixed and dilated pupils in some series.” My eyes were fixed but not dilated.

In a coma and seriously injured, a number of surgical procedures were performed that allowed me to live. Together with the help of occupational therapists, I recovered sufficiently enough to return to work.

The occupational and speech therapists I worked with are modest—always crediting the success to the patient. With their professional guidance, I made what seemed to be a “miraculous recovery”. I trusted their skills and followed their instructions.

Whatever the therapist asked me to do, and their asks were generally quantified, I tried to exceed their request. If the speech therapist, while doing naming therapy, asked me to name five items, my goal was to name six.

My first strategy has two major benefits: First, it helps me recover more quickly, and second, it makes the therapists enjoy working with me as I was obviously trying to get better.

My second strategy I employed was to think about what I truly enjoy doing. This motivated me to work through my therapy because I hope that upon recovery, I would be able to work again, as a coach/mentor. I love helping other entrepreneurs solve their way to success. This time also, I wish to repay the world for saving my life. Thank you Ypsilanti Press for sharing my story. 

Gerry Roston

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