‘I had an angel over me that day.’ Crash victim becomes groom in Modesto hospital
Days after a crash that resulted in compound fractures to his left arm and leg, requiring surgeries he’s undergone and still faces, Waterford resident Nate Ward said he considers himself fortunate.
Fortunate that the crash on Kennedy Road just off Highway 108-120 in Knights Ferry didn’t kill him.
Fortunate that he didn’t suffer head trauma or a spinal injury.
Fortunate that he didn’t lose consciousness and so was able to cry out for help, which was heard by a nearby woman.
And fortunate that his fiancee, whom he’s had to delay marrying three times because of the COVID-19 pandemic, at last became his wife. Nathan Ward and Brittney Smith became mister and missus on Saturday, their latest scheduled wedding day, just not where and how they intended.
When the staffers caring for him at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto overheard him telling Brittney how sorry he was that the crash had ruined their plans, they came to the rescue. “They decorated a room, bought us a cake, brought in a (chaplain), doped me up and threw me in a wheelchair, brought my fiancee in and married us,” Ward said in a note to The Bee. “We can’t thank these people enough for making our special day take place after everything that has transpired.”
DMC Chaplain Jeremy Brown said in an email to The Bee, “Celebrating with our patients and our staff is always a highlight for me. When I met Nate and heard his story, I knew we needed to do what we could to help him and Brittney keep their wedding date. ... As always, it was great to see our nursing staff demonstrate empathy and compassion as they went above and beyond to make this a special day for the Wards.”
The crash occurred Wednesday, about 4 p.m., according to the Modesto Fire Department, which responded along with Oak Valley Ambulance and the California Highway Patrol.
By phone from his bed at DMV on Sunday, Ward said Brittney had just gotten home from her job in Jamestown, so took over caring for their kids — ages 10, 4 and 1 — while he went out for a cruise on his Harley-Davidson Electra Glide.
He had just turned off the highway and estimates he’d gone about 100 yards on Kennedy when he saw a newer looking white Ford pickup approaching. It had big, built-in storage lockers in its bed, like it was a work truck, Ward said.
Perhaps the driver “had his nose buried in his cell phone,” Ward said in a text message to The Bee, because “I watched the truck come straight into my lane.” Ward swerved to the right, prepared to ride into the roadside ditch to avoid a head-on crash, when the driver finally realized he was fully in the opposite lane.
Apparently startled, the truck driver swerved toward the motorcycle instead of away from it. Ward said. “He made contact with me on the driver’s side portion of his utility bed and left me for dead in the road.”
There were no known witnesses, the motorcyclist said. “And I truly believe that is why that driver of that pickup took off,” he said during Sunday’s phone interview. “He probably thought he killed me and realized there was nobody around and just kept on going.”
CHP looking at possible ‘non-contact hit and run’
Ward said his fiancee arrived at the scene as he was being put into an air ambulance helicopter. She told him a California Highway Patrol officer said that while Ward might have been run off the road, it didn’t look like another vehicle had struck his motorcycle. There also was a reference to speeding.
“My fiancee kind of kind of lit him up over that,” Ward said. He said she told the officer, “Why would you say that he was just speeding and laid the bike down himself? His bike is obviously damaged to a point that that wasn’t caused by just sliding it over and then sliding on the road.”
Ward said the left side of his bike was damaged. The crash bars, or engine guards, were bent “all the way back towards the motor,” he said. “I was impacted.”
CHP Modesto office spokesman Officer Thomas Olsen gathered some information on the crash for The Bee on Sunday afternoon. He said the incident remains under investigation “as a possible non-contact hit and run.” He said the white pickup was described as having a black grille.
Ward said he never lost consciousness after the crash and cried out for help. His screams were heard by a woman at or near the 50’s Roadhouse Restaurant on Kennedy who was carrying groceries from her car, so hopped in, went looking and found him.
“I had a very serious compound fracture to my knee and my elbow on the on the left side,” Ward said Sunday. “When I showed up Wednesday night at the ER here at Doctors, they were able to repair my exploded kneecap that night. They were able to wash it out well enough to where they didn’t have any issue with infection as they put the hardware in.
“And then my elbow, I had so much debris and gravel and dirt in there that it’s taken a couple surgeries to flush all that out. And I’ve actually got about 20% of my elbow bone, my joint in there, missing.” Doctors have prepped the elbow enough that Ward is set to go into surgery Monday morning for repairs — including bone grafts and metal hardware — to begin.
Recovery begins, wedding dress still waits
Were it not for the crash, the couple would have wed at Hurst Ranch in Jamestown, joined by dozens of friends and family members, Ward said. At the hospital, of course, that couldn’t happen, but Ward’s best man joined them as witness. And once Ward is out of a wheelchair, the newlyweds will schedule another ceremony at Hurst so Brittney can wear her wedding dress and they can celebrate with loved ones, he said.
Those caring for him at DMC told the couple that the wedding was a welcome break from their work in these difficult times and that it was nice to have a chaplain there to celebrate, not console, Ward said. And by marrying, Brittney now can receive the time off from work to care for him once he’s released to go home, he said.
“Relationships are important. God didn’t design humans to live alone, and I can tell Nate and Brittney are a great team,” Chaplain Brown said.
Another thing Ward feels fortunate for, he said, is his job at Gallo Glass Co., where he’s worked for 15 years as of this month. His employer has been supportive, he said, and “I’ve got the time off available through state disability and all that, so I have time to recover and all still have my position when I get back.”
His understanding from his medical team is that he should recover well from his leg injury. His left hand is “good to go” in terms of feeling and movement of his fingers, he said, but he is not expected to regain full extension of his elbow.
In hopes that damage it sustained will confirm his account that a collision occurred, Ward said, friends are looking around Knights Ferry for a pickup that matches the one he described. He said he believes his father also is checking with businesses that might know the truck.
Proving the collision would help with “massive medical bills that will be pilling up,” he said.
Meanwhile, his bride has set up a gofundme page, titled “Medical bills for Nate,” where she wrote, “I hate having to set up this gofundme (I’m stubborn and hate asking for help) but this happened three days before our wedding day and we spent almost everything we have on it and now we are left with nothing for his medical bills.”
Still, Nate Ward looks on the bright side. “I feel very fortunate somebody was looking out for me,” he said, because most of the time in a crash involving a motorcycle and another vehicle, “it doesn’t work out too well for the motorcycle rider. ... Thank goodness I had an angel over me that day.”
Anyone with information that could help the CHP investigation is urged to call its Modesto office at 209-545-7440 or Stanislaus Area Crime Stoppers at 209-521-4636. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward. Tips also can be submitted via www.stancrimetips.org.
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
