Craig Vetter (injured in streamliner/deer collision)

[RunningOnEmpty]

Thanks for the update, Morgan! I finally met your dad in person at the Mid Ohio fuel economy challenge for the first time. I am very glad it looks like he is going to recover. I hope to see him up and around next year. Tell him Paul Wright ( I corresponded with him about the Milk Carton paper for a high school Shell Fuel Economy car) said hi and get well soon.

My forensic analysis on the eye socket injury from the clues you gave is, the dear bolted across the road on Craig's left side as you surmised. The sudden motion in his peripheral vision caused his head to turn just as the deer hit him.
The deer's skull would have been at eye level (30-44") with his unprotected face. I assume no horn marks were evident so it probably was an antler-less young buck or doe, but a direct, head butting impact of a running deer ( 100-150 lbs @ 30-40 mph) would have easily caused the injuries.

anyway, keep us posted.

[jkv357]

Anyone have an update on Craig's condition?

Hopefully he is well on his way to a full recovery at this point.

[deejaaa]

hopefully good?

[MVetter]

Just wanted to pop in and say that dad's recovery has been slow but good. He was transferred to a hospital much closer to home several weeks ago and has been in various forms of therapy (mental, physical) and it has been working wonders. They're looking at perhaps discharging him from the hospital in a week. He is very excited about getting out. It's good to have dad back.

[euromodder]

Thanks for the update, Morgan.
Good news, too !

[MetroMPG]

I'll second that! Great to hear, and thanks for keeping us updated.

[PeterS]

Originally Posted by MVetter

Just wanted to pop in and say that dad's recovery has been slow but good. He was transferred to a hospital much closer to home several weeks ago and has been in various forms of therapy (mental, physical) and it has been working wonders. They're looking at perhaps discharging him from the hospital in a week. He is very excited about getting out. It's good to have dad back.

Good news , thanks .

[jkv357]

Just wondering how Craig's recovery is going since the last update a month ago.

Hopefully things are steadily improving.

[jkv357]

Anybody heard anything?

[MVetter]

Why yes, I have. I hadn't thought about this thread much but then I get the email alert when people post so I thought I'd give a bit of an update.

Dad came home later October and has been a bit of a handful. The only things he had previously, during hospital stay, repeated over and over were, "take me home" and, "I want to go home". Well it turns out he had an idealized version of home in his mind. His whole life he's used to being in charge and giving orders. Unfortunately, for his own safety, we basically had to hover around him and stop him from setting himself on fire or falling over or burning the house down, etc. We, in short, had to tell him, "no" a lot, and this came as a huge shock to him and was the cause of many meltdowns.

We've moved through most of that. Right now he's definitely him but he's just kind of slow and foggy. He has trouble remembering the right words for things. Today we took a walk as part of his therapy. It had been raining earlier and the road was covered in earthworms. "Look at that," he said, "bugs all over the road, like little snakes". He just couldn't remember the word for worm. We have some in-home care people that watch over him at night on a regular basis. They show up at 9. One evening I was over and they pulled up. "Ahh," dad said, "my mechanic is here." He knows exactly what the purpose of the guy is, but the words elude him.

We've got him back on his computer looking mostly at Facebook and responding to emails which he does on his own. Facebook is hard for him to use and we have to show him how it works, but he likes to be a part of things as he tends to feel very isolated these days. He wants to respond to everything, sometimes multiple times as he is a bit confused right now. If people here want to send him an email I bet he'd love that and would probably respond even if he has no idea who you are. Be forewarned that almost all of his responses are a variation of the following:

"Hello,
Thank you for your letter. The last 5 months have been very hard for me because a deer hit me. This is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I am getting better thanks to my wife and sons.
Craig"

There will be slight variation and a lot more ellipses (...) but fully expect something like that as a response. But yeah, by all means, drop him a line at craig@craigvetter DOT com <-- the forum won't let me post an email address until I have 5 posts.

These sorts of things really lift his spirits these days. Thank you all for your concern.