×

Second chances: Truman man glad to be alive

TRUMAN — Life can change in the blink of an eye, just ask Josh and Becca Johnson of Truman. The couple, married for just a year and a half, learned this truth at the start of the year when Josh was involved in a car crash that left him with brain injuries and a mangled body. Fortunately, Josh is on his way to recovery thanks to his wife, 4-year-old son Mason, and their local community.

Josh is a local farmer working for Jon Helvig in Truman, while Becca teaches art at Granada-Huntley-East Chain School. They see their son Mason on a fairly regular basis who alternates time with his dad and his mom. By all accounts they lived a quiet country life, happy to have each friends and family, as well as each other.

But that all changed at 3:15 p.m. on January 19. Josh was heading north on 250th Avenue, where he collided with a vehicle travelling west on 230th Street and was thrown from his truck. According to the authorities, Josh failed to yield, which he states bothers him that he would make such a mistake.

Becca shared her memory of the phone call she received and the events that followed.

“I was at school, and at 3:45 I got a call from Jon, his boss,” she said. “I knew something was wrong because Jon has never called me before. He told me that Josh was in an accident and that he was taken by ambulance to Fairmont, but he didn’t know anything.

“So I grabbed my stuff and took off. I wasn’t really in panic mode, but I thought that just because he was in an accident doesn’t mean the worst. So I got there and when I pulled up I saw the helicopter there and I hoped that wasn’t for him. When I got there they asked for his birth date and address, and then I panicked a bit.

“Then they said they needed me to go sit in this room,” she continued. “So my response was that this is the room you put people in to tell them that somebody died, I know what this is. So I’m losing it, and then the nurse came in and told me he had a really bad head injury and a broken leg, but they needed to get him to Rochester.

“They told me I could see him and so they got him ready to go, and he had blood all over his face. I put my hand on his head and it felt like his whole skull was crushed in. So I almost collapsed, I didn’t think he was going to die but I started to kind of go into shock.”

Becca stated that she got help from one of the emergency workers to catch her breath, and a friend was already on her way to help drive her to Rochester. Over the course of time, she learned the extent of Josh’s injuries.

“He had a traumatic brain injury with multiple spots of bleeding and swelling on the brain. He has deficits with his memory and language, but at the start it was more. He didn’t understand how to feed or care for himself.”

She stated that improved on its own with a little time, but he did undergo speech therapy every day for a half hour along with occupational therapy during a two week stay at Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul.

“Now that we’re home, he’s going to have speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy for an hour twice a week now to help with his brain injury. With his vision, there’s nerve damage on his right side so there’s lag in his eye, and occupational therapy is also going to help with that.”

She stated that the physical therapy will help with the rest of his injuries, including ten fractured vertebrae and his broken leg.

“He can’t lift his arms up, there’s a lot of stiffness we’ve got to work on. We have multiple appointments in Rochester and then some in Fairmont. We also have to follow up with neurosurgery for his brain, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery for his skin graft, and a hearing test.”

Josh doesn’t remember anything from the accident himself, but shared his thoughts when he reflects back on what happened.

“Part of the problem is that we’re farmers, so our life is in and out of a truck a lot of the time,” he said. “So throwing a seat belt on always seems like a job. It won’t be a job anymore.

“The thing that blows my mind is that I’ve driven that intersection almost every single day of my life and I’ve never had a problem. But I wonder how I did not see that truck, and one of the hardest things for me was that I heard that I had hit somebody. So in my mind, because of how bad I was, I wondered how bad he was and if I had killed somebody.

“Luckily I believe the guy is ok, which I’m very thankful for because it was clearly a mistake that I made,” he continued. “I’m proud of myself that I wouldn’t normally make that mistake, but at the same time I don’t know why I made that mistake that day.”

As for coming home about a week ago, both Josh and Becca are amazed at how Mason has dealt with things.

“He’s done really awesome I think,” Becca stated. “Josh is bothered by it because we don’t have equal custody and we already go stretches of time without seeing him.”

Becca shared that Josh was able to talk to his son on the phone while hospitalized, but Josh didn’t understand everything that was going on. She then had the idea to put Mason on speaker and as he would talk, she would whisper to Josh what to say.

In that way, Josh was able to reassure his son, even though he was unable to comprehend the conversation. She stated that since they’ve been home, he’s been frustrated that he can’t play with his dad like he used to.

“He’s very adamant about me wearing my seat belt,” said Josh. “He told Josh that he never ever wants him to crash ever again,” Becca stated.

One thing that both are grateful for is the support they’ve seen come in from their local community.

“It’s crazy, because I’ve never once felt like we were alone in this,” said Becca. “I think it could be easy for people to feel helpless and like they don’t know what to do, and I never felt like we were by ourselves. My phone did not stop, and I couldn’t even read messages because more just kept coming in.”

“People are just awesome,” Josh stated. “I think about how lucky I am to be from Truman, from a small town where everybody who helped me that day knew who I was. We are so lucky to be from this area where people go above and beyond all the time.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.65/week.

Subscribe Today