The Vow: The True Events That Inspired the Movie (5 page)

The couple introduced themselves as Wayne and Kelli Marshall and offered to do whatever they could to help. At the moment, the only thing I needed was to know that my wife wasn’t dead.

As my rescuer wrapped me in blankets from his truck cab, another car stopped and the driver hurried over to me. She said a few words, then stopped abruptly with a look of horrified recognition on her face. “Oh my goodness! You’re Danny Carpenter’s son! Your cousin Debbie is my best friend! I’ll get in touch with your family,” the woman said and left the scene to start making calls.

I couldn’t help but be amazed at how God was already taking care of us. There we were in the middle of nowhere and we had already encountered a rescuer, a prayer warrior, and a family friend.

The drivers of the other two vehicles involved in the crash had no visible injuries, and the two passengers in the pickup only had relatively minor wounds. The same could not be said of Krickitt and me. Not only was I in bad shape physically; I was also numb with shock. All I could think about was Krickitt trapped inside the twisted-up car a few feet away, looking like she was either bleeding to death or already dead. Her head was caught between the steering wheel and the roof where the top had been crushed during the rollover. I realized that if I’d been driving I would have been killed instantly, because I wouldn’t have fit in the space remaining after the impact and my skull would have been crushed. But in Krickitt’s case, we could see that unlatching her seat belt before her head was free would probably break her neck if it wasn’t already broken.

Within minutes the police and ambulances started arriving. It was obvious that Krickitt would have to be cut out of the car, but the EMTs were afraid to wait that long to start treatment. So one of them, DJ Coombs, crawled inside the car—not mentioning that she had severe claustrophobia—and started giving Krickitt IVs and monitoring her vital signs as she was still hanging upside down from the seat belt. Krickitt seemed to drift in and out of consciousness; her pupils alternately constricted and dilated—a classic symptom, I later learned, of severe brain injury.

While the rescue team was still cutting open the car, our passenger and I were loaded into an ambulance. On the way to the hospital in Gallup, the EMTs began cataloguing my injuries. My left ear was almost torn off; my nose was nearly severed. I also had other facial lacerations, a concussion, two cracked ribs, and a broken hand. Doctors would later discover a scraped lung and bruised heart muscle.

As we sped along, I heard the ambulance attendant call the hospital on the radio. “We have two male accident victims, one in critical condition, one serious. The third victim is still at the scene in severely critical condition.” That didn’t sound good, but I realized that it at least meant Krickitt was still alive.

When we arrived at the emergency room of Rehoboth-McKinley Christian Hospital in Gallup, I was immediately taken to get an X-ray and CT scan. The medical personnel had discovered a big knot behind my left ear that they thought might indicate a skull fracture. When I was finished, Krickitt was already being given life-saving treatment in another area of the ER, so I didn’t see her, but I knew the news wouldn’t be good. After all, I had seen her in the crumpled car, and it had taken them more than half an hour to cut her out of it.

Nobody would give me a straight answer about Krickitt’s condition. How was she doing? Was she going to recover? Was she going to be okay? Nobody would tell me, which I realized was not a good sign. I later learned that when one of the ambulance technicians heard Krickitt was still alive hours after being admitted to the hospital, she refused to believe it. She had never seen anyone survive such massive head trauma.

As soon as Krickitt had arrived at the hospital, the medical staff turned all their attention to her, which didn’t draw any complaints from me. The ER team had given me some preliminary treatment, but I didn’t want to take any sedative or have any other work done until I knew what was happening with my wife. I had been waiting for a while when a doctor approached me. His manner was professional and confident, but when I looked in his eyes I could tell he was exhausted. He handed me a little manila envelope.

“Mr. Carpenter, I’m terribly sorry.”

I couldn’t formulate a response before the doctor left the room. There was nothing to do but investigate the contents of the envelope. I opened it with my good hand and slid the items out into the broken one. I stared down at the Highlands University watch I’d had made for Krickitt . . . and her wedding ring.

When I gave her that ring, I had made a vow to protect her through times of challenge and need. This was definitely a time of both challenge and need, but I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do to protect her now.

My thoughts and feelings were all scrambled up inside me. I was in pain, and I was exhausted, but most of all I was annoyed that I didn’t know how Krickitt was doing. But all of a sudden, piercing through everything else, was the thought that she was dead.

I was too incredulous to be sad. It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing to believe my wife was dead; I
couldn’t
believe it. I was incapable of accepting the fact that those blue eyes were closed forever and I would never again see her smile shining at me from other side of the dinner table. I couldn’t believe that the most joyful, most enthusiastic woman I had ever known could be torn from my life so savagely. My brain simply refused to process the idea that after two months of marriage I was a widower. A
widower.

Some time later a nurse came in to check on me and update me on Krickitt’s status. “We’ve done all we can, and she hasn’t improved,” she explained. “She’s beyond medical help.”
Maybe she’s beyond medical help,
I thought,
but she’s not beyond God’s help.

The nurse continued. “Still, she’s hanging in there better than anybody thought she would. She’s strong, and she’s in excellent physical condition. The doctor has put in a call for an airlift to Albuquerque.” The door that had seemed shut and sealed only minutes ago had miraculously opened a crack.

At the time I didn’t know it, but when the medical flight team got orders to fly my wife 130 miles to the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, they were afraid, based on their experience, that it would be a wasted trip. It would take a solid hour for the helicopter to get to Gallup, and then it would be another hour before they could get my wife back to Albuquerque. By then they figured it would likely be too late. Krickitt would be dead.

But by God’s grace, the staff at Rehoboth-McKinley Christian Hospital in Gallup took a chance on Krickitt Carpenter. As they wheeled her out of the emergency room to get ready for the flight, I saw her for the first time since I had been taken away from the scene of the accident hours before. She was lying on a gurney, surrounded by medical staff that were keeping track of what looked like about a dozen IV lines and monitors. My wife’s head and face were so swollen and bruised that I could barely recognize her. Her lips and ears were blue-black, and the swelling was so bad that her eyelids couldn’t close all the way. Her eyes looked to the right with a blank stare, and her arms moved around aimlessly (more signs of severe head injury). Her body temperature was unstable, so they had put her in a big thermal wrap. To me it looked like a body bag.

I got up off my bed and grabbed both of Krickitt’s hands. They were shockingly cold. “We’re gonna get through this, Krick,” I said to her. “We’re gonna make it.” I smiled but felt the tears coming just the same. “Don’t you die on me!” I pleaded, my mouth inches from her face. She was wearing an oxygen mask and I could hear her breathing, shallow and tentative. “We’re in this forever, remember? We’ve got a long way to go!”

When they began wheeling Krickitt’s gurney out to the helipad, I suddenly realized they had no intention of taking me with them. “They have to have two medics and a lot of gear to give your wife any chance for survival,” someone explained to me. “There’s no room for a passenger.”

I wasn’t a passenger; I was her husband. I was also a patient, I suddenly realized, with fairly severe injuries of my own. I tried to convince anyone who would listen to get the helicopter to come back for me. But that wasn’t to be. Someone told me there were two other active calls at the time, and there was no time to make another two-hour round trip for me. As this registered, I helplessly watched my wife get wheeled through a set of swinging doors toward the waiting helicopter.

“Hang in there, Krickitt! I’m praying for you!” I yelled, before I started sobbing as I watched the love of my life be rolled up to the waiting helicopter and eased inside. I stood there in disbelief as the rhythmic sound of the copter’s overhead rotor faded into the distance.

From the moment I had arrived at the hospital, I had tried repeatedly to get in touch with Krickitt’s parents in Phoenix and mine in Farmington, New Mexico. But since it was the day before Thanksgiving, nobody was home. Running out of options, I finally called Krickitt’s old phone number and talked to her ex-roommate Lisa, who still lived with Megan in the apartment the three of them had once shared in California. I quickly explained the situation, then asked her to try and reach Krickitt’s parents, tell them we’d been in a wreck, and stand by for further news.

Next I called my boss at the university, athletic director Rob Evers. I told him the situation and asked him to track down my parents. He said he’d take care of it and immediately started on the trail. He knew I had an uncle in Albuquerque with the last name of Morris, but he didn’t know my uncle’s first name because everyone called him by a nickname, Corky. So Rob called the telephone operator and explained that he had an emergency and had to contact the family. “We don’t usually do this,” the operator explained, “but stay on the line.” She called every Morris in Albuquerque until she found the right one.

Uncle Corky had a phone number for my dad’s business partner. Rob called the man, who was eventually able to get in touch with Dad on his cell phone. He and Mom were in Roswell, New Mexico, where they were spending Thanksgiving with my brother Kelly. Dad called immediately. I told him that a doctor had just given me Krickitt’s wedding ring and a, “Mr. Carpenter, I’m terribly sorry.” I was frustrated that I didn’t know what was going on, but I would let him know when there was any news.

As I lay there after Krickitt’s chopper took off, I still couldn’t believe that my wife of two months was going to die. She was so full of life, so joyful, so focused on being the woman God wanted her to be. Just that morning she had been writing in her journal again. When I read the entry later, I was amazed by what she wrote that day: “Lord, . . . Help us to have endurance to work hard for your values. I pray for opportunities to serve you, be a witness for you, be a leader for you. . . . Please open my heart and Kimmer’s to do the things that will be pleasing to you.” Little did we know on that Thanksgiving Eve how God would answer those prayers in amazing and extremely difficult ways.

But that night my thoughts weren’t on the future. They were focused on the horrific events of the present. I called my dad again. Through my heartbreaking sobs, I managed to gasp out the words, “They’ve flown Krickitt to Albuquerque and they wouldn’t let me go with her. You’ve got to come and get me. Take me to her.” I broke down again, overwhelmed by the emotions flowing through me. “I have to see my wife again before she dies.”

3

A MODERN-DAY MIRACLE

W
hile my dad was figuring out how to get me to Albuquerque, Krickitt’s parents were just arriving home to an empty house. Gus and Mary had done all they could to make sure our first Thanksgiving as a married couple would be special. Since we weren’t going to be able to make it to their house for Christmas due to my work schedule, they decided to add an early touch of holiday cheer to their house by putting up their Christmas lights, both inside and out. They knew we wouldn’t be getting in until late in the evening, so they had gone out to watch a basketball game.

Krickitt’s parents hadn’t yet heard the news when they returned home from the game, but Mary knew something was wrong even before they entered the house. It was after midnight, yet when they pulled in the drive there was no white Escort sitting there to announce our arrival. They soon heard the life-altering news: their beloved daughter and her husband had been in an accident and the outlook wasn’t good.

I was waiting for my dad to call back with his plan when Mary called me. Since Krickitt was on her way to Albuquerque, I couldn’t tell Mary how she was doing, as I didn’t know myself. But I do remember telling her, “I’m hurting bad and I can’t live without her.” Mary said she would call the hospital to check on Krickitt’s status, and they would catch the first plane out of Phoenix in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day.