I met Jodi Clausing of Indiana on an internet discussion board. Most of the participants on this particular board were women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, with or without children, from all over the country and all over the world. We bonded over discussions of our kids, school, childhood illnesses, Halloween costumes, job dilemmas, in-law problems – basically the normal stuff that marks relatively uneventful lives that have collided in new ways since the dawn of the Internet.
And then one day in August of 2009, Jodi posted a message desperately asking for prayers, telling us how her family’s life had taken a turn for the horribly eventful.
While riding his motorcycle near the subdivision where they live, and obeying all traffic laws (as documented in the police report), Jodi's 29-year-old husband Ryan plowed straight into an SUV that had turned directly in front of him into a driveway. The car was driven by a 16-year old girl who reportedly did not "see" him despite the clear, dry conditions that prevailed on that summer day. The impact catapulted Ryan from his motorcycle to the other side of the road. His injuries were so severe that he was airlifted to the hospital.
Through a back window of their home, Jodi and her two children, ages 4 and 6, watched curiously as the Medivac helicopter touched down and lifted off, never dreaming that their beloved husband and father was inside, fighting for his life.
Ryan almost died that night. In a coma for two weeks, he suffered a spinal cord injury at the T3 level, a three part C-1 fracture, occipital condyle fracture, severe leg injury from the knee down on his right leg, collapsed right lung, bilateral lung contusions, heart contusion and broken clavicle, scapula, rib, wrist and ankle. Multiple surgeries were performed to save his right leg from amputation. He battled pneumonia and many other infections while doctors waited for his vitals to stabilize enough to perform surgery to repair his crushed spine.
Meanwhile, the teenage driver, who both the police report and the insurance company found to be 100% responsible for the accident, and whose post-accident blood draw showed marijuana in her system, was having a bad night too! As she wrote on her MySpace page that evening, "RIP Blazer. Got in a bad wreck with a motorcycle this morning. My car is trash now - go look at the pictures. Ugh definitly (sic) the worst day of my life." The pictures she posted included her wrecked car, the helicopter, and herself, in the bathtub, drinking a bottle of beer.
By the time she turned 16, this same teenage driver had already racked up two tickets for excessive speeding – 19 miles over the limit (she also received a ticket months after the accident – 29 miles over the limit). So you would think that with such a checkered driving record PLUS a blood test positive for marijuana, the Clausings could feel reasonably certain that she would face a harsh consequence, one that would effectively remove her – at least for a time - from the streets where she posed such a hazard.
But, no. The blood draw that revealed marijuana in her system was thrown out on a technicality. Her family pressed her lawyer to argue before the judge that she didn’t know she could refuse the blood draw – and the judge agreed, even though the arresting police officer who requested the draw was not allowed to testify in court about exactly how he had phrased his request for blood. The girl’s mom celebrated this legal “victory” on her own Facebook page by sending all her friends a special thank you for “standing by us.”
At least her friends can still stand.
Ryan Clausing, of course, cannot stand on his own. He is now a paraplegic with the most severe of spinal cord injuries, paralyzed from the nipples down. Formerly an accomplished computer programmer, he suffered a traumatic brain injury that will likely affect his ability to work again. There is so much more to this story that I cannot begin to record here, including the girl's family's repeated attempts to delay the court case and lies – later dispelled – by witnesses for the teenager. But you can learn more at the Clausing's website, where the accident and its aftermath were meticulously documented by Jodi and Ryan.
I’m not going to say that the accident has destroyed this family, because that is not the case. Jodi and Ryan are best friends and soul mates and work together through their tears, pain and, yes, laughter, to get through each day. This includes Jodi’s attending to Ryan’s most intimate bodily functions, getting him and his wheelchair to dozens of therapy sessions each month, navigating the insurance bureaucracy as well as the hundreds of other “normal” tasks that most of us accomplish unthinkingly every day of the week. The Clausing’s two young children also need care, both physical and emotional.
Why am I writing about the Clausings, a family I have never met in person, a family who lives far from my home in New Jersey? I am writing about them because, I, like Jodi, am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. Every day my loved ones venture out into a world where people make bad decisions – like smoking marijuana or drinking alcohol - and then get behind the wheel of a car. I’m writing about them because I’m angry that in an age when we do so much to educate teens about the deadly combination of driving, drug and alcohol use and then count on the adults in their lives to drive home these points, there still exist such callous and irresponsible people who just don’t care. That the girl who hit Ryan and changed his life forever escaped unscathed, aside from a minor probation and the mandate to take a defensive driving course. That the legal system made a mockery of the Clausing’s pain.
I’m writing because I’m afraid, now that the court case is over, the world will forget about the Clausings and they’ll be left to navigate the system on their own – the insurance, the therapies, the finances and the logistics, while the girl who caused this upheaval in their lives continues to engage in illegal activity, i.e., underage drinking. How do we know about this? Because she brags about it on the Internet, torturing the family she so grievously wronged. A family who, in their goodness, have repeatedly said they would feel so much better if they knew the young driver accepted responsibility for her actions, learned something from this incident and would never again pose a threat to another motorist.
If you'd like to learn more about the Clausings or if you can help them with advice, support, prayers or if you've been through something similar and think they can benefit from your experience, contact them through their website. They would love to hear from you. Let's not forget about them.