BY KATHY CHAFFIN
SALISBURY POST

“Sunday, July 23, 1995 ... They put all of us in a consultation room and one of your doctor’s associates came in to talk to us. He told us that you had suffered head trauma, that there was bruising in some areas and a skull fracture on the back of your head. There were no broken bones or spinal or internal injuries found.

He said to expect you to get worse over the next couple of days, that you probably would get pneumonia from the amount of water in your lungs. He also said to expect your brain to swell. We all sat very still and held onto each other and cried a lot ...”

It was the worst day and the best day of his life.

That’s how Mark Lyerly describes July 23, 1995, the date of his water cycle accident on High Rock Lake.

It was the worst day because the accident left him in a coma for days and the lingering effects of his brain injury continue to plague his life. It was the best day because it left him with more compassion for others worse off than him.

“It changed me forever,” he says.

Mark was 31 years old when he accepted an invitation from longtime friend Mark Weddington to ride his Sea-Doo water cycles on the lake.

Lyerly had his whole life ahead of him when he headed to the lake that day. He was a junior at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and was working two summer jobs, at Village Inn Pizza and Ham’s, both on East Innes Street.

The two Marks had been friends since they met at Haven Lutheran Church and were in the same grade through Wiley Elementary, Knox Middle and Salisbury High schools.

“He didn’t want to go alone, so he called me up,” Lyerly says. “The rest is history.”

It’s history that was recorded in the Post the following week under the headline, ”Accident leaves man in coma: Water cycle flips when crossing wake of boat on High Rock Lake.”

The two Marks had ridden over to Goat Island, a popular hangout, and then over to the Davidson County side of the lake. “That’s the last thing Iremember,” Lyerly says.

“Monday, July 24 ... During the night, the doctors placed a ‘pressure bolt’ in the top of your head to monitor the pressure in your brain. They shaved the right quarter of your head, drilled a little hole and placed this bolt in your brain. Now you have an antenna coming out the top of your head.

We picked on you, called you a unicorn, said you had a horn, a George Jetson space helmet. Mama called it a stem. Craig wanted to know if you picked up good reception. You didn’t find us humorous ...”

Weddington, who was riding in front of Lyerly, says he didn’t see what happened. “I could just see the splash,” he says. “I’m assuming going over the wake, he lost control. I turned around to check on him and all I could see was his life vest floating in the water.”

Lyerly was still in the vest, Weddington says, but his body was limp and he was face down in the water.

“It was terrifying,” he says. “I’d known this guy basically all my life, and Ithought I was going to have to tell his mother he was dead.”

His face wasn’t under water long, Weddington says, maybe 20 seconds before he got to him. “When Ipulled him up, he was gray,” he says. “I knew he was alive because he made a groaning sound and coughed a little bit.”

Though two or three boats drove by, ignoring his screams for help, Weddington says a couple in a small fishing boat came to their rescue. “Supposedly, they had seen what happened and were kind of headed this way,” he says. “Their boat wasn’t real fast.”

The man gave Lyerly mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, while his wife waved down another boat for help in calling emergency services. Davidson County Emergency Medical Service personnel met them at shore and transported Lyerly to Lexington Memorial Hospital.

By the time Weddington got the cycles loaded on his trailer and arrived at the hospital, they had already transferred Lyerly to N.C. Baptist Hospitals in Winston-Salem. So he went back home, picked up his wife and headed to Winston to check on his friend.

“Tuesday, July 25 ... Dr. Glazier came in tonight. He said you were doing as well as could be expected. He explained the type of head injury you have; we’re not sure we understand, though. It’s like when you were moving at an accelerated speed, you came to a stop but your brain didn’t, like it was a twisting injury.

The ‘wires’ that connect your brain to function were broken— they need to heal or reroute themselves. He is expecting it to take months for recovery ...”

Margaret and Carl Lyerly were at their home on Mooresville Road when they got a call that their son was in an accident and was at Lexington Memorial Hospital. “We have two sons,” Margaret says, “so we didn’t really know which son it was and we didn’t know what kind of an accident it was.”

As they were getting ready to leave, they received another call identifying the injured son as Mark, the youngest of their four children. They were told that the accident had happened on High Rock.

“That’s all they could tell us,” she says, “and when we got to the hospital, they were getting ready to transfer him to Winston. It was too much for them to handle.”

At Baptist, they gathered with their two daughters, Jan Edwards and Carol Campbell, their other son, Craig, and his wife, Debi, waiting to hear news about Mark, who was being treated in the head trauma intensive-care unit.

He was comatose, they were told, after suffering a closed head injury with multiple contusions of the right temporal lobe secondary to probable shear injury.

When one of the nurses mentioned that Mark wouldn’t remember anything that had happened when he came out of the coma, Margaret says they bought a “Bowman Gray School of Medicine” composition book in the hospital gift shop.

“Day by day,”she says, “we put our thoughts in and what was going on and what was happening.”

Jan started out writing in the book, while subsequent entries were written by Carol, Debi and Margaret.

“Wednesday July 26 ...You are moving your legs but not much else. We were letting you rest when suddenly, you opened your eyes for Mama for about three seconds. She was delighted! One of your docs came in and was pleased to hear it. He said the ventilator could not come off till you were awake enough to cough ...”

Margaret stayed at the hospital the whole time Mark was in the coma and for a few days afterward. Her daughters rotated staying with her.

Their pastor at Haven Lutheran Church, the Rev. Ron Fink, drove to the hospital every day, she says.

“If it wasn’t for our faith,” she says, “ I don’t know that Mark would have made it.”

Margaret says her church and her friends’ churches stood by their family during this time. “I had a lot of friends in the different organizations I was attached to,”she says,” and I had worked downtown and everybody downtown knew me.

“I think everybody took it back to their churches, and it certainly was a group effort. That’s the miracle that brought him through it, I think.”

Mark started opening his eyes three days after the accident, according to the notebook, but it was a week before he was able to talk.

Even then, “he would say things that didn’t make sense,” Margaret says. “He would call us different names. He was real mixed up, couldn’t sit up. He couldn’t feed himself or do anything like that.”

On Aug. 2, 10 days after the accident, Mark was transferred by ambulance to the Whitaker Care Rehabilitation Center at Forsyth Memorial Hospital. His mother rode with him.

There, visiting hours were limited from 4:30 to 8 while Mark worked with different therapists during the day. “I had to relearn to do everything — walk, talk, chew, stand,”he says. “For part of the rehabilitation, I was in a wheelchair.”

The hardest part, Mark says, was regaining the use of his left arm, which had been struck by the water cycle in the accident.

After about four weeks, therapists “reached a point where he was mobile and walking on his own and doing things,” Margaret says. They had even had him make a pizza, which was part of his job at Village Inn.

Mark was released to return to his parents’ house, where he was living at the time of the accident.

“It was weird at first because I had been in the hospital so long,” he says. “It was exciting, too.”

His family had decorated the yard with banners to welcome him home.

“Thursday, July 27 ... Praise the Lord — your eyes are open and stayed. Mama asked if you know she is here. You nod slightly ...”

He may have been back home, but Mark’s rehabilitation was far from over. He started more therapy at the Charlotte Institute of Rehabilitation, riding there and back every weekday with his sister, Jan, who worked in physical therapy at University Hospital in Charlotte.

At about the same time, the manager at Village Inn allowed Mark to come back to work, an hour a day at first.

“They wouldn’t let him work long,” Margaret says. According to the manager, she says, “he’d get real frustrated and not do things like he should or he’d get short-fused with some of the employees.”

From the first of September through mid-December, Mark worked on a very limited basis while continuing in therapy.

He had to relearn to drive and completed a driver education course at the rehabilitation center before getting his license renewed.

His weaknesses, according to a copy of a neuropsychologist’s report at the center, were high speed auditory processing, relative decline in immediate memory span, learning and memory for associated details, inefficiency in learning details, speed and strength in both hands and coordination in left hand, possible sensory anomalies in left lower visual field, speed of visual ID and attention to detail.

At the rehabilitation center, Mark says he met patients who were recovering from injuries more serious than his. Some were blind, he says, and others were missing arms and legs.

“Those people there were probably the strongest people you’ll ever see in your whole entire life,”he says.

After finishing up in therapy, Mark was referred to the N.C. Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services office in Salisbury, which helped him return to school at UNCC the following January.

VR, along with the disability services office at the university, offered such assistance as providing him with class notes and recordings of lectures.

Mark spent his free time studying. “Every night,” his mother says, “that was his life, that and his computer.”

He had ordered a computer before the accident. In fact, three days afterward, Mark had received a message at home saying his computer had arrived. “So you really need to wake up and tell us where to pick it up,” the entry for that day ended.

“Friday, July 28 ... Walking in, we found a pleasant surprise! The ventilator, NG (feeding) tube ... have all been removed. What a joy to see this! Your temperature was also down to 99.9. We worked and worked with you, but we didn’t get much response. Guess you were still tired from your big day yesterday ...”

During the summer, a year after the accident, Mark says he began to suffer from depression. He had been told it was a possible side effect of the brain injury, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

He had been having problems sleeping as far back as he could remember since the accident. He had lost down to 120 pounds on his 5-foot-10-inch frame. He was anxious at school and home.

“I guess the reality of what had happened was finally catching up,” he says.

A psychiatrist at the Charlotte Institute for Rehabilitation prescribed Paxil, and he took it for a while. “It slowed me down to where I was almost lethargic, not wanting to do anything,” he says. “And I didn’t like that.”

Mark continued in school, struggling to keep up in his classes, and spending his free time on the Internet. “The Internet has probably been the biggest lifesaver,” he says. “I guess it’s because if you mess up, you can do it again.”

It was during that time that Mark began to reach out to others. He became the assistant Scoutmaster for Grace Lutheran Church’s Boy Scout Troop, something he really enjoyed.

He also did an internship with the Carolina NeuroServices/The Head Injury Center of Charlotte.

On May 10, 1998, Mark graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in geography and psychology and a minor in political science. It was Mother’s Day, his mother says, “and he thought that was a nice gift from him.”

Mark had written the words, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom” on the back of his graduation cap in big, white letters.

“We were all real proud of him,” his mother says.

“Saturday, July 29 ... The doctor had decided to move Mark to a room. Out of ICU!! ... Markie, this page is from Jan. We asked you tonight who annoyed you the most — you pointed to me! Then you gave me the ‘OK’ sign, then you shot me the bird! You are smiling. Your eyes are focusing. This is the most encouraged we have been! Keep it up kid!”

Life as a college graduate didn’t get much easier for Mark. He continued working part time at Village Inn while looking for a job that would put his degree to use.

Though he was able to get on Medicaid after his insurance from a previous job ran out, Mark’s applications for disability benefits were repeatedly turned down. His job applications during the two years since his graduation have also been unsuccessful.

And to make matters worse, Mark recently lost his part-time job at Village Inn.

Labeth Varh, job placement specialist at VR, says Mark was very upset by this.

“He loved his job,” she says. “But he didn’t say too much.I think at some point, Mark has learned to sort of control his emotions. He came in here and just said, ‘Guess what? I got fired today from Village Inn.’

“When I tried to get him to talk about it, he just said it was a long story and he changed the subject, and we talked about different things.”

Though VR has worked with Mark since his rehabilitation therapy, Labeth was only assigned to his case in April. During that time, she says he has turned in several applications that he has not heard from.

One that he did hear from, she says, he wanted to postpone pursuing until he heard from another job that he wanted more.

“In my opinion,” she says, “that’s the effect of the brain injury.”

Most people would go ahead and keep looking for other jobs while waiting to hear from one they’ve applied for.

The job search has been frustrating for Mark, according to Labeth.

“He just has those days that he comes in here and needs to vent a little bit,” she says. “I don’t mind. A lot of times, he just needs to have somebody to talk to who understands his personality, and I’m there when he needs that.”

When he gets a job, VR will continue to support him and help to maintain his employment. Labeth and his counselor will stay in close contact with Mark and his employer, she says, to see if there are any problems, and if there are, to assist in dealing with them.

“Sunday, July 30 ... (We) arrived in the morning to find you sitting in a lounge chair beside the bed — EYESOPEN! We were just beside ourselves to see this! You said, ‘What are you doing here!’ You are talking , moving and have your eyes open and focused. How wonderful. Craig has been filling you in on what happened. You don’t remember the accident which is what we expected ...”

The notebook that his family wrote in during the time Mark was in a coma and part of his subsequent rehabilitation helped him to piece together everything that had happened.

“I’ve read it so many times,” he says. “Some of it’s kind of spooky, but I’m glad they wrote it down because that’s three weeks that Idon’t remember.”

When he looks at it, Mark says he realizes how lucky he is to have survived. “Let’s put it this way,” he says. “If there is such a thing as guardian angels, they were working overtime that day.”

For his mother, questions about his accident only serve to bring up a time that she’s trying to put behind her. She wants Mark to do the same.

“I think he’s just got to put it in the past,” she says. “Nobody knows what he’s been through. Nobody realizes, and nobody knows how hard it’s been. I think I would be the closest to knowing how hard he’s tried to overcome it, but it’s time to move on.”

Even Mark Weddington, who has remained close friends with him since the accident, says he wishes he wouldn’t dwell on what happened.

“I think he’s the same person he always was,” Weddington says. “I think (it’s made) him wonder if he’s the same person he was.”

Mark Lyerly says he’s going to try to put what happened behind him. “It’s like this article,”he says, “in my opinion, it’s closure to this whole thing.”

His struggle with brain injury might best be told in an undated, two-sentence entry in the notebook his family started. He wrote it during rehabilitation.

“What is a bruised brain? Will it ever heal?”