How a Drunk Driver Crash Changed My Identity Forever
I woke up in a freezing room where techs were extracting sharp things from my skin. It was a Code 4 emergency, which means my life was threatened. Then it wasn't my life.
The good news was that I survived. The bad news was brain damage. Years later, a neurologist said I suffered the same type of injury that former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords suffered when she was shot in the head.
,So were my legs and my arms and my feet. Post-truck, I was parked with trauma patients, rolling Play-Doh balls and pounding pegs in boards. We included a former physician, a former professor of psycholinguistics, a former custodian and a former owner of a kebab café.
There's not much demand for brain-damaged writers. Since I couldn't comprehend — leave alone manage — business affairs, an attorney completed my last career financial transaction which was refunding a five-figure advance to a client known from Burundi to Beverly Hills. To pay mounting bills, he was forced to sell our home. This was all far above my new head.
Movers I can't recall packed boxes I can't recall for a trip I could not wrap my head around. I landed in a sleepy southern town east of somewhere and west of somewhere else in a rambling wooden farmhouse peering out from tangled brush. It was nine hours south of my old life and my child. No trace of the move remains in my mind — it's like it didn't happen or I wasn't there.
I rarely recalled I'd been moved to Virginia. This means I wondered if I should move to a place I already lived in, or leave a place I already left. My child stayed in college in New York while I spent one year in outpatient therapy. I relearned how to walk, how to talk, how to place my hands on a keyboard, how to read, how to write, how to make a cup of tea. Three years post-truck, the Social Security Disability Administration ruled my injuries were 'permanent and incurable.' Still, my daughter's 'diagnosis' was by far the worst. She said her mom disappeared.
In my first life, I made sense of thousands of stories on global warming and lip gloss and sports bras and organized closets and candidates. Normal people do things like that, plus wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, get kids to school, keep clients happy and clean dryer lint. It felt like I had been thrown from a plane. Then it felt like trying to piece together any remnants of the person I was before I was thrown out of the plane. And then? It kept feeling that way.
Most of us lose people we love. I lost the person I was.
The new 'me' had never read books I loved, never shared favorite times with my child. They tested my brain hundreds of times and found lots of things bit the dust, like the file that encodes new memories, and the file that integrates physical movements so you don't fly down the steps or fall out of your chair. I lost what happened a minute ago, a page ago, a lifetime ago. This is called amnesia.
Amnesia can take anything and make it disappear. Your child's first words. Your mom's last words. Mine came with a side of aphasia. That means I couldn't find the words I needed or put them together so they made sense. I said stuff like 'white stuff sky,' which meant snow, or 'cow thing pants' which meant belt or 'green thing dirt,' which meant plant. Words often seemed to start mid-sentence — and end there, too.
There are three stages of making a memory: encoding (which means you learn something), consolidation (which means you store it), and recall (which means you can find it again). Learning was hard. Storing was hard. Recall was almost impossible. I was impaired and could not be repaired. A doctor told me so. There's an irony: The drunk woman who hit me was impaired, too.
You may wonder if 'insurers' covered health care bills or compensated me for pain and suffering. The answer is no. The drunk driver had three prior DUIs and no longer had a license or insurance. Because she had stolen the truck she was driving, the owner's insurance didn't pay either. The car I was in was parked and I was waiting for the woman who owned it to return, so she was not at fault and her insurer didn't pay.
As a result, most of the massive medical bills were paid by me, or rather the power of attorney on my behalf. Health insurance did not/does not cover motor vehicle accidents. I encountered a Catch-22 that removed me from outpatient rehab at the end of year one, which may or may not have been linked to insurance, too. Or, rather, lack of it. The head guy (pun intended) in neuro rehab decided I was both too screwed-up and not screwed-up enough to keep receiving help. If I were more screwed up, they could do something. If I were less screwed-up, they could do something. But I wasn't, so they couldn't.
And, so, I relearned to read under the patient care of no one at all. I achieved mixed results. In year two post-accident, I began trying to read a book. I read the same pages for two years. At first, they meant nothing. Then they meant something, for a few seconds. If I began where I'd left off, say on page 5, and found a character was on a train, I had no idea why he was on it or where he was going.
At the same time, I started scratching anything I could recall on any surface I could find — paper plates, paper cups, placemats, napkins, coffee stirrers and Popsicle sticks. I called them scraps. They were not in alphabetical order, not in numerical order, not in chronological order, but out of order, like me. I stuffed them in brown paper shopping bags and then stashed the bags in a closet.
A few years ago, Google provided 115,000,000 ways to 'clear your mind.' These included clearing your mind of stress, clearing your mind of guilt, clearing your mind of clutter, clearing your mind of negative thoughts, clearing your cookies, clearing your cache, clearing your sinuses, and clearing your mind of all thought. I had. I also found 8,310,000 jokes about brain injury on Google. Plus, of course, in cartoons all over the planet, people like us are hilarious, especially when our skulls get smashed. Think baseball bats, rifle butts, and coconuts on craniums.
The intact brain is amazing. The three-pound blob remembers the theme music for The Flintstones, the name of your fifth-grade French teacher, and your childhood phone number. But put it through a windshield at 70 miles an hour,r and then it's a crapshoot. You might remember something that happened a moment ago, or you might not. You might not walk or talk again. You might wake up as an entirely different person. Or you might never wake up.
Seven years ago, I began attending a newly formed brain trauma group. One member, Daniel, 'came back' from two weeks in a coma. Daniel's counselor says that the 'old' Daniel is gone. The new Daniel has new frontal lobes and a new personality, as well as the wife of his former self and three kids he can't name. Another member, Mel, kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' like he did something wrong. We were told most of us were in the program due to someone driving while drunk.
Brain trauma is not about the past: the successes, accomplishments, accolades. It's not even about losses. It's a muddy, rutty, hands and knees crawl up to the first rung of the ladder, and up each rung after that. There is no cure. I'm sharing this story not because I think it is exceptional, but because I know it is not. Many others with similar stories can't write because they're more disabled than I am or because they lost their lives.
We all have plaque in our brain — some of us know it. Plaque can advance like armies in the night, taking more and more of us, leaving less and less. You take a detour when you see us coming, and think we don't notice, but we do.
In 2021, the latest year for which there are numbers, the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration (NHSTA) reported 401,520 Americans were killed or injured due to someone driving while drunk. Also according to NHSTA, two out of three Americans will be impacted by drunk driving in their lifetime. Every day, lives of adults and kids are taken by impaired drivers who gain a few seconds, then take a few lives. Each statistic is a person. Each death is preventable, as is each injury.
According to a recent article in The New York Times Magazine, 'From 2020 to 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has since calculated, the number of crashes in the United States soared 16 percent, to more than six million, or roughly 16,500 wrecks a day.' The article goes on to point out that, 'For public-messaging reasons, vehicular wrecks are almost never referred to by experts as 'accidents,' wording that implies no culpability on the part of the participants.'
The fatality figures were somehow even worse. In 2021, the latest year for which there are figures, 42,939 Americans died in car crashes, the highest toll in a decade and a half. 'Of those deaths, a sizable portion involved intoxicated or unrestrained drivers or vehicles traveling well in excess of local speed limits.'
This would be a different story if I regained my former life, complete with my former mind. I didn't. Eighteen years post-accident. I still think with a stutter, speak with a limp, and have less usable space in my brain, so I run out of memory fast.
Today I had two coins in my hand. One was a dime and one was a nickel, and I didn't know which was which. I can spackle all I want but underneath I'm still broken. I frustrate others by leaning on them and by not leaning on them, and baffle them when I seem normal and when I don't.
It takes decades to build a life, and seconds to destroy it. The next time someone warns you to be careful when driving home from a night out, don't roll your eyes. Heed their warning. Disabled people are the single largest minority in the world, and likely the least heard from. We are also the only minority anyone can join at any time. Trust me, you won't want to be disabled — or to take someone's life.
Judith Hannah Weiss freelanced for 25 years, writing print and broadcast promotion for New York, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue and other major media. In 2006, she was hit by a drunk driver, which put things on a long pause. Her post-accident work has appeared on NBC News and in The Washington Post, The Oldster, Iowa Review, The Rumpus, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, Memoir Monday and The Pulse. You can find her on Substack at judithhannahweiss.substack.com and at judithhannahweiss.com.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Buzz Feed
28-07-2025
- Buzz Feed
How a Drunk Driver Crash Changed My Identity Forever
On a Tuesday morning in 2006 in Dutchess County, New York, a woman ran out of beer. She was drunk at 10 a.m. but not as drunk as she wanted to be, so she stole a truck, procured a case of Bud, then crushed a parked car. I was in the parked car. EMTs pried me out. I woke up in a freezing room where techs were extracting sharp things from my skin. It was a Code 4 emergency, which means my life was threatened. Then it wasn't my life. The good news was that I survived. The bad news was brain damage. Years later, a neurologist said I suffered the same type of injury that former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords suffered when she was shot in the head. ,So were my legs and my arms and my feet. Post-truck, I was parked with trauma patients, rolling Play-Doh balls and pounding pegs in boards. We included a former physician, a former professor of psycholinguistics, a former custodian and a former owner of a kebab café. There's not much demand for brain-damaged writers. Since I couldn't comprehend — leave alone manage — business affairs, an attorney completed my last career financial transaction which was refunding a five-figure advance to a client known from Burundi to Beverly Hills. To pay mounting bills, he was forced to sell our home. This was all far above my new head. Movers I can't recall packed boxes I can't recall for a trip I could not wrap my head around. I landed in a sleepy southern town east of somewhere and west of somewhere else in a rambling wooden farmhouse peering out from tangled brush. It was nine hours south of my old life and my child. No trace of the move remains in my mind — it's like it didn't happen or I wasn't there. I rarely recalled I'd been moved to Virginia. This means I wondered if I should move to a place I already lived in, or leave a place I already left. My child stayed in college in New York while I spent one year in outpatient therapy. I relearned how to walk, how to talk, how to place my hands on a keyboard, how to read, how to write, how to make a cup of tea. Three years post-truck, the Social Security Disability Administration ruled my injuries were 'permanent and incurable.' Still, my daughter's 'diagnosis' was by far the worst. She said her mom disappeared. In my first life, I made sense of thousands of stories on global warming and lip gloss and sports bras and organized closets and candidates. Normal people do things like that, plus wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, get kids to school, keep clients happy and clean dryer lint. It felt like I had been thrown from a plane. Then it felt like trying to piece together any remnants of the person I was before I was thrown out of the plane. And then? It kept feeling that way. Most of us lose people we love. I lost the person I was. The new 'me' had never read books I loved, never shared favorite times with my child. They tested my brain hundreds of times and found lots of things bit the dust, like the file that encodes new memories, and the file that integrates physical movements so you don't fly down the steps or fall out of your chair. I lost what happened a minute ago, a page ago, a lifetime ago. This is called amnesia. Amnesia can take anything and make it disappear. Your child's first words. Your mom's last words. Mine came with a side of aphasia. That means I couldn't find the words I needed or put them together so they made sense. I said stuff like 'white stuff sky,' which meant snow, or 'cow thing pants' which meant belt or 'green thing dirt,' which meant plant. Words often seemed to start mid-sentence — and end there, too. There are three stages of making a memory: encoding (which means you learn something), consolidation (which means you store it), and recall (which means you can find it again). Learning was hard. Storing was hard. Recall was almost impossible. I was impaired and could not be repaired. A doctor told me so. There's an irony: The drunk woman who hit me was impaired, too. You may wonder if 'insurers' covered health care bills or compensated me for pain and suffering. The answer is no. The drunk driver had three prior DUIs and no longer had a license or insurance. Because she had stolen the truck she was driving, the owner's insurance didn't pay either. The car I was in was parked and I was waiting for the woman who owned it to return, so she was not at fault and her insurer didn't pay. As a result, most of the massive medical bills were paid by me, or rather the power of attorney on my behalf. Health insurance did not/does not cover motor vehicle accidents. I encountered a Catch-22 that removed me from outpatient rehab at the end of year one, which may or may not have been linked to insurance, too. Or, rather, lack of it. The head guy (pun intended) in neuro rehab decided I was both too screwed-up and not screwed-up enough to keep receiving help. If I were more screwed up, they could do something. If I were less screwed-up, they could do something. But I wasn't, so they couldn't. And, so, I relearned to read under the patient care of no one at all. I achieved mixed results. In year two post-accident, I began trying to read a book. I read the same pages for two years. At first, they meant nothing. Then they meant something, for a few seconds. If I began where I'd left off, say on page 5, and found a character was on a train, I had no idea why he was on it or where he was going. At the same time, I started scratching anything I could recall on any surface I could find — paper plates, paper cups, placemats, napkins, coffee stirrers and Popsicle sticks. I called them scraps. They were not in alphabetical order, not in numerical order, not in chronological order, but out of order, like me. I stuffed them in brown paper shopping bags and then stashed the bags in a closet. A few years ago, Google provided 115,000,000 ways to 'clear your mind.' These included clearing your mind of stress, clearing your mind of guilt, clearing your mind of clutter, clearing your mind of negative thoughts, clearing your cookies, clearing your cache, clearing your sinuses, and clearing your mind of all thought. I had. I also found 8,310,000 jokes about brain injury on Google. Plus, of course, in cartoons all over the planet, people like us are hilarious, especially when our skulls get smashed. Think baseball bats, rifle butts, and coconuts on craniums. The intact brain is amazing. The three-pound blob remembers the theme music for The Flintstones, the name of your fifth-grade French teacher, and your childhood phone number. But put it through a windshield at 70 miles an hour,r and then it's a crapshoot. You might remember something that happened a moment ago, or you might not. You might not walk or talk again. You might wake up as an entirely different person. Or you might never wake up. Seven years ago, I began attending a newly formed brain trauma group. One member, Daniel, 'came back' from two weeks in a coma. Daniel's counselor says that the 'old' Daniel is gone. The new Daniel has new frontal lobes and a new personality, as well as the wife of his former self and three kids he can't name. Another member, Mel, kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' like he did something wrong. We were told most of us were in the program due to someone driving while drunk. Brain trauma is not about the past: the successes, accomplishments, accolades. It's not even about losses. It's a muddy, rutty, hands and knees crawl up to the first rung of the ladder, and up each rung after that. There is no cure. I'm sharing this story not because I think it is exceptional, but because I know it is not. Many others with similar stories can't write because they're more disabled than I am or because they lost their lives. We all have plaque in our brain — some of us know it. Plaque can advance like armies in the night, taking more and more of us, leaving less and less. You take a detour when you see us coming, and think we don't notice, but we do. In 2021, the latest year for which there are numbers, the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration (NHSTA) reported 401,520 Americans were killed or injured due to someone driving while drunk. Also according to NHSTA, two out of three Americans will be impacted by drunk driving in their lifetime. Every day, lives of adults and kids are taken by impaired drivers who gain a few seconds, then take a few lives. Each statistic is a person. Each death is preventable, as is each injury. According to a recent article in The New York Times Magazine, 'From 2020 to 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has since calculated, the number of crashes in the United States soared 16 percent, to more than six million, or roughly 16,500 wrecks a day.' The article goes on to point out that, 'For public-messaging reasons, vehicular wrecks are almost never referred to by experts as 'accidents,' wording that implies no culpability on the part of the participants.' The fatality figures were somehow even worse. In 2021, the latest year for which there are figures, 42,939 Americans died in car crashes, the highest toll in a decade and a half. 'Of those deaths, a sizable portion involved intoxicated or unrestrained drivers or vehicles traveling well in excess of local speed limits.' This would be a different story if I regained my former life, complete with my former mind. I didn't. Eighteen years post-accident. I still think with a stutter, speak with a limp, and have less usable space in my brain, so I run out of memory fast. Today I had two coins in my hand. One was a dime and one was a nickel, and I didn't know which was which. I can spackle all I want but underneath I'm still broken. I frustrate others by leaning on them and by not leaning on them, and baffle them when I seem normal and when I don't. It takes decades to build a life, and seconds to destroy it. The next time someone warns you to be careful when driving home from a night out, don't roll your eyes. Heed their warning. Disabled people are the single largest minority in the world, and likely the least heard from. We are also the only minority anyone can join at any time. Trust me, you won't want to be disabled — or to take someone's life. Judith Hannah Weiss freelanced for 25 years, writing print and broadcast promotion for New York, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue and other major media. In 2006, she was hit by a drunk driver, which put things on a long pause. Her post-accident work has appeared on NBC News and in The Washington Post, The Oldster, Iowa Review, The Rumpus, Dorothy Parker's Ashes, Memoir Monday and The Pulse. You can find her on Substack at and at
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Yahoo
A father died mining coal. His son warns KY bill would endanger other miners.
David "Bud" Morris celebrates his son Landen's first Christmas in 2005. Five days later, Bud died after a mine owner, the only mine emergency technician on duty, failed to render aid after Bud was injured underground. (Morris family photo) Growing up along the Harlan-Letcher county line in Eastern Kentucky, Landen Morris often heard from family that he reminded them of his father. It wasn't just because his slightly crooked smile or brown eyes resembled David 'Bud' Morris, they told him. It was the way he talked, the way he laughed, his personality. Bud was a good person, they said, who cared about others. The 19-year-old plays the bass drum in the Morehead State University marching band, and his late father loved playing the drums in a rock band. 'I never got to really meet him personally,' Landen told the Lantern over the phone. 'I feel like that process of getting to know him was a little more difficult. … Just learning to actually trust what people had to say about him, and the fact that they were all good things.' Landon was only 3 1/2 months old when Bud Morris was fatally injured in an underground coal mine in Harlan County in December 2005, leaving behind his mother, Stella Morris, to raise him. It was a death that federal inspectors said was preventable, in part because Bud, 29, didn't receive proper first aid to stop bleeding after a loaded coal hauler nearly amputated both of his legs. The only person trained on site in emergency medical care, the mine owner, failed to provide proper aid. Morris' death was part of a spate of deaths in coal mines across the country including five miners killed in an underground explosion in Harlan County in 2006. Stella Morris and the other widows did not grieve in silence. They joined the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) at the Kentucky Capitol to push for stronger safety protections. That intense lobbying effort led to Kentucky lawmakers in 2007 unanimously approving a number of mine safety protections that went beyond federal rules. One protection was put in place because of what happened to Bud Morris, said Tony Oppegard, a former mine inspector and attorney who helped write the law. The legislature required at least two mine emergency technicians (METs), or miners trained to provide medical care and stabilize a miner's condition, on each mining shift. If one MET was unable to help, the new law assured that a backup MET would be there. Now, nearly two decades after losing Bud, Stella, joined by Landen, is speaking out again because Kentucky miners are at risk of losing that extra MET. The House last month approved a bill that would end the requirement for a backup MET on shifts with 10 or fewer miners. The sponsor of House Bill 196, Rep. John Blanton, R-Saylersville, who represents Knott, Magoffin and part of Pike County, has argued small mines are being temporarily shut down by not having two METs available on site, hurting productivity and impacting miners' paychecks. Blanton's HB 196 awaits action by the Senate. An operator of small surface mines in Eastern Kentucky told the Lantern he doesn't want to endanger miners but that having one MET on site is sufficient coupled with the first aid training his miners receive. Oppegard, the former mine safety inspector, disagrees, saying the extensive emergency medical training that METs receive goes well beyond first aid training. Stella remembers Dec. 30, 2005 was the last working day of the year for Bud at Mine No. 3 with H & D Mining Inc. She was getting ready to take a shower and go to her job when she got a call from the mine saying Bud was being taken to the local hospital. Bud's legs were cut off, the caller said. By the time she got to the hospital, Bud was gone. She remembers the months after Morris' death as a bad dream she couldn't wake up from. 'I had a 3 ½ month old son, and I would look at him for my strength to carry on through the day, because part of me wanted to go on and be with Bud,' Stella said. 'But I would look at my son knowing that he had lost his dad. I couldn't make him lose his mom.' She'd also replay in her mind the decisions made by miners that day when Bud died — why they didn't elevate his body to mitigate the bleeding, or why the only mine emergency technician on site didn't instruct other miners on how to help Bud. According to a federal mine fatality report, Morris, a shuttle car operator, died from 'near amputating injuries' to his legs when he was struck from behind by a loaded coal hauler. His left leg was severed '17 inches above the heel.' The report states the mine emergency technician at the mine did not provide Morris with any first aid as he continued to bleed, instead telling miners to 'get him out of here.' A supervisor, who was supposed to receive first aid training but had not yet done so, wrapped cravat bandages around Morris' knees. Outside the mine while waiting for an ambulance, miners had 'applied two pieces of rope to each leg above the knee' in an attempt to stop the bleeding, according to the report. Miners didn't apply dressings or tourniquets to the injury, nor were pressure points used to mitigate the bleeding. A paramedic who treated Morris said there would have been 'a very different outcome' if basic first aid training had been implemented, according to the report. The lone mine emergency technician at the mine had 'panicked,' the acting director of Kentucky's mine safety office told the Louisville Courier-Journal in a Feb. 15, 2008 article. Stella's takeaway: 'Just because you have a title don't mean you're going to do what you should do when it comes down to things like that. If we would have had someone else, just one other miner trained to do what Bud needed, he may still be with us today.' Stella filed suit against H&D Mining Inc. but received no compensation from the coal mining company. When Landen was growing up, she'd tell him how much his dad loved him and that he was in heaven. Stella didn't sit down with Landen and share some of the details of what had happened to Bud until her son was about 10 years old. 'My son would just lay and cry for his dad, and it was like, 'He knew his dad but he didn't know his dad,' And it was a struggle,' Stella said. 'I'm very proud of my son for being the tough kid that he is. I just thought it was a different life for him than what he would have had had he had his dad growing up.' Landen told the Lantern he didn't look at the federal mine fatality report detailing how his father died until last month. He worries that if HB 196 becomes law other injured miners will die like his father for lack of trained help. Ending a requirement that could 'save someone's life one day is, without a better term, stupid,' Landen said. 'I just feel like they're doing miners a disservice.' Both proponents and critics of HB 196 recognize the significant decline of Kentucky's coal industry, particularly in Eastern Kentucky, in the nearly two decades since Bud's death. The market pressures of competitive natural gas prices along with cheaper coal produced elsewhere decreased demand for Appalachian coal, while mines became more mechanized and automated. The number of active mines and miners in Kentucky have steadily dropped. Blanton, the sponsor of HB 196, has argued that fewer and smaller coal mines are operating now in Eastern Kentucky. Some of those smaller operators asked him for the change. He told the Lantern he wants to cause no harm to miners, only keep them working. 'I don't want to cause consternation for them, by no means. I just want to make sure that our mines are able to stay operational, that we do so in a safe manner,' Blanton said. 'I'm simply trying to make a tweak to it so that mines can stay operational.' According to the state's 2023 annual mine safety report, 53 licensed mines — out of 158 total — had 10 or fewer employees. Those small mines accounted for 267 of the 4,766 total employees counted in the report. When asked about small mining operations that have been impacted by the MET requirement, Blanton pointed to former Pikeville Mayor Frank Justice II who operates a few small surface mines in Eastern Kentucky. Justice in a phone interview said it's been difficult to have two METs on site for his highwall mining operations, particularly overnight shifts, staffed with three or four people. Highwall mining is a technique in which machinery is used to extract coal from an unmined wall of excavated earth. 'It's a big burden to keep two METs on there, especially when guys already got all their first aid training,' Justice said. 'What happened to Mr. Morris is certainly a tragedy, but I've got confidence in my guys' ability to handle situations.' Justice said in the past when he has had only one MET available, he has hired emergency medical technicians from local fire departments to stay on site while his miners operate. He said he pays his certified METs a dollar more per hour, but he also suggested some of his miners don't want the responsibility of being a MET. 'Anytime you ask for something like this, it's controversial of course. I know that,' Justice said. Oppegard, the attorney who helped write the 2007 law, said that while the industry has declined, the need for a backup MET at all mine sites has not. The free training required to become certified as a MET takes at least 40 hours and includes learning about cardiac emergencies, muscular and skeletal injuries and bleeding and shock. An exam and annual training also are required. The industry's decline has coincided with the disappearance of organized labor in Kentucky mines. The last unionized Kentucky coal mine closed at the end of 2014. The United Mine Workers of America union has previously opposed bills that would reduce the required number of METs for small coal operations. In 2009, UMWA President Cecil Roberts wrote a letter to the editor in part condemning a Kentucky bill that would have reduced the number of required METs from two to one for mine shifts with 18 or fewer workers. Roberts wrote then that 'supporters of these attacks on miners' safety say they are taking these steps to help small mine operators.' 'One thing you can say about these folks: At least they aren't trying to hide the truth of their greed. They are willing to be quite upfront about their desire to put profits and production ahead of safety in Kentucky coal mines,' Roberts wrote. The UMWA was neutral on a similar Kentucky bill last year to reduce the number of METs, and Blanton has said the UMWA is neutral on this year's bill as well. A representative with the national UMWA office didn't respond to emails requesting an interview about the union's position on this year's bill. Every mining law ever written on paper was written with the blood of dead miners. It always took a disaster to get the laws changed. – Steve Earle, United Mine Workers of America In a recent interview, Steve Earle, a former UMWA lobbyist who helped push for the original requirement for two METs and current vice president for the UMWA district representing Western Kentucky, spoke personally about his experience working with Stella and other widows to pass the 2007 mine safety law. The late Democratic Rep. Brent Yonts of Muhlenberg County carried the mine safety bill in 2007; it passed both legislative chambers unanimously. 'I was speaking at a Democratic function. I said, 'Because of the hard work that Rep. Yonts did … women have husbands and children have fathers.' And I was convinced then, and I'm convinced now, that that legislation saved miners' lives,' Earle said. Earle, speaking to the Associated Press in 2007, said the mine safety law showed what determined, passionate people like Stella and the other widows can do 'when they have right on their side.' Earle told the Lantern he still believes that. 'They did have right on their side. They were very effective,' Earle said. 'Every mining law ever written on paper was written with the blood of dead miners. It always took a disaster to get the laws changed.' Landen says he has a lot of respect for his many neighbors and high school classmates who work in mining. He believes coal mining — an occupation that's taxing and difficult for a number of reasons — is an integral part of his mountain community. He picked a different path, enrolling at Morehead State where he hopes to become a high school English teacher. He remembers writing an essay about the epic poem 'Beowulf' in high school, being fascinated by the Old English syntax. He doesn't know what his future holds or whether he'll stay in Eastern Kentucky but he hopes to inspire and help others. As for the father he never got to know in person, he believes Bud would be proud of him. 'I'm on the path to actually doing something else than what's usually expected in our little town. Because not many people do go to college here, let alone teach,' Landen said. 'I feel like he would just be really, really proud of me, that I'm carrying on that dream and that I'm actually chasing it, rather than falling into something that I wouldn't enjoy.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
16-01-2025
- Yahoo
Mother of Navy SEAL Candidate Who Died After Hell Week Says Cases Were Dismissed by the Navy for Unknown Reason
Kyle Mullen, a Navy SEAL candidate, died in February 2022 after completing the rigorous one-week training, which pushes aspiring Navy SEALs to their physical and mental limits Kyle's mother Regina has told she was informed just before Christmas that the public hearings into her son's death would no longer be happening Regina also claimed the cases against the two men she blames for Kyle's death were dismissed by the Navy Regina Mullen — the mother of Kyle Mullen, the Navy SEAL candidate who died in February 2022 after completing training known as Hell Week — is speaking out following her son's tragic death and asking for accountability. Nearly three years after her son's death, Regina joined Good Morning America on Wednesday, Jan. 15, and said Kyle was 'just trying to be a hero and protect people, and [his death] happened by his own country, by his own military.' Kyle — who died of bacterial pneumonia, according to GMA and CNN — was 24 when he completed the 120-hour training known for pushing aspiring sailors to their physical and mental limits. Days after his death, the Navy issued a statement saying, "Mullen was not actively training at the time of his death.' Over a year later, in May 2023, the Navy released the investigation into Kyle's death, citing that the training program Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL (BUD/S) 'was operating with a previously unrecognized accumulation of risk across multiple systems.' The investigation release stated the Navy 'identifies risks that aggregated as the result of inadequate oversight, insufficient risk assessment, poor medical command and control, and undetected performance enhancing drug use." According to GMA, the Navy ended its investigation without holding public hearings, and Regina told the outlet the decision came with little explanation. She said right before Christmas 2024 she received a phone call telling her that the hearing would no longer be happening and claimed the cases against the two men she blames for her son's death were dismissed by the Navy and she wasn't told why or who canceled the hearings. She claims Captain Brad Geary, who was in charge of her son's trainee class, and Commander Dr. Erik Ramey are responsible. 'We have a failed leadership under command that killed a man unnecessarily and injured many,' Regina told GMA. 'I think it's pretty reasonable to ask for accountability ... I want the board of inquiry to be reinstated, is what I really want so we can go public." Regina also recalled her son's excited message about completing Hell Week during her appearance on GMA, but explained how after speaking with him on the phone she realized he was out of breath and "didn't sound good." Hours later, Kyle was dead. According to GMA, Kyle's final medical check found abnormalities in his lungs, severe trouble breathing and swollen legs that required him to be sent back to his barracks in a wheelchair. Per the outlet, the Navy investigation cited "failures across multiple systems that led to a number of candidates being at a higher risk of serious injury, with inconsistent medical monitoring and lack of training among commanding officers and an at all costs mindset among the candidates." Related: Mother of Navy SEAL Candidate Who Died After Hell Week Training Speaks Out: 'He Will Be Missed Every Day' Authorities also found a bottle labelled as 'human growth hormone' in Kyle's car. However, according to CNN, a press release from the Naval Special Warfare Command Public Affairs said Kyle died in the 'line of duty, not due to his own misconduct." Regina told GMA the Navy Medical Examiner did not test for steroid use and claimed they said it was 'because it was irrelevant to the cause of death.' Regina remains suspicious about her son's medical care. 'The Navy's not giving me what I'm asking for, the medical treatment of Kyle's care. They're not providing it,' she told GMA before adding, 'Why won't they provide it?' Her attorney, Kevin Uniglicht, added that they haven't received the basis for the dismissal of the cases. Capt. Geary released a statement through his attorney Timothy C. Parlatore to ABC News. 'This case was badly mishandled from the beginning when we were noticed for the board of inquiry, it became very clear that a comprehensive investigation had never been done and the deciding officer hadn't had access to all the evidence," the statement read. "Through the discovery process, the Navy was forced to gather all the relevant evidence, which made continuing the case unsustainable.' Attorney Jeremiah J. Sullivan III also issued a statement to ABC News on behalf of his client Dr. Ramey. 'We invested a substantial amount of time investigating the case with the assistance of top medical experts," the statement read. "The overwhelming evidence confirmed that Dr. Ramey met the medical standard of care.' Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Parlatore, Sullivan and the Navy did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment on Wednesday. Read the original article on People
