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Highlands Today

Gaining Strength

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

In between walking exercises, Darrel Smith does arm curls at the Highlands County Family YMCA on Monday in Sebring. Smith is working to fully recover from a bicycle accident he was involved in last August.

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By Douglas  Carman | Highlands Today

Published: December 11, 2007

SEBRING — Maybe it was because he was in great shape. Maybe it was Darrel Smith's helmet that made the difference and saved his life after a car struck his bike in August. Perhaps, Smith thought, it was the thousands of prayers given for him from other park rangers, his fellow bicyclists and the entire community.

In a little more than three months, Smith came out of a month-long medically induced coma, regained 20 pounds of lost muscle and just last Thursday took a two-mile ride on his tricycle for the first time since the accident.

"Yes, it hurt like hell... I got nine pieces of stainless steel (in me) right now. Two of them are cables," he said, showing his right hip. His smile and his beaming optimism goes against the grain of the aches he described.

Smith's trainer, Keith A. Bowyer Jr., thinks it was Smith's drive that got him where he is now. Smith's hoping by Friday that he will get back on his job at Highlands Hammock State Park. By Christmas, Smith's hoping he can try out a bicycle.

"He's doing great," Bowyer said. "His big goal was to get back into his normal routine... he'll get back, close to normal."

'Asleep For 28 Days'

Before the Aug. 31 accident, Smith said he would ride his bike four to five days a week. He'd ride it to work at Highlands Hammock State Park, and he would regularly go about 30 miles around the county when he had the time to do it.

While riding home on a low-riding recumbent bike, that changed. Smith's memory cuts at the end of his shift that Friday. He was digging holes and saw an acquaintance as he started riding home.

"I waved at him and that's the last thing I remember for 35 days," he said.

After he was struck, surgeons at the Lakeland Regional Medical Center put Smith into a medically induced coma before they repaired his hips.

Greg Smith, Darrel Smith's son, said he and his mother took a hotel room nearby and stayed as Darrel went under the scalpel. He said it was very stressful for the first couple of weeks.

Darrel imagined it being much harder on his wife and his son than it was on him. "I was asleep for 28 days," he said.

Greg was encouraged, though. He first noticed that the black eye Darrel had cleared up after the first
week in the hospital.

"Those were good signs," Greg Smith said.

He was overwhelmed seeing Darrel by the end of September, when Darrel woke up from the coma.

"Just to see his eyes...." Greg said, not finishing the sentence. He recalled Darrel's vacant look after the accident as he interrupted himself. "You can see his eyes but they weren't his eyes. Nobody was home."

On Oct. 8, Darrel Smith was home again, but still bed-ridden. He had a makeshift bed on the floor and spent a week mostly watching television, unable to get up.

"He's not a homebody," Greg said.

With therapy, he was able to sit on a couch by the end of the week. By the middle of November, he was using a walker to go to the Highlands County Family YMCA gym, where he continued his sessions. He dropped the walker two weeks ago and used a cane to walk around, and now he can walk without any help.

After losing 40 pounds from the accident, he regained half of that by Monday.

'The Best Christmas Gift Ever'

Darrel Smith was overjoyed with his own progress. He knew for most people, being able to roll out of bed is nothing special, but for him, it was an accomplishment doing so without using hand rails.

Monday, he walked by himself to each exercising machine at the YMCA gym, letting Bowyer hold onto his cane.

"This is another Christmas day for me," he said. It's how he feels every time he do one of the tasks he used to do before the wreck. As he watched the other cyclists come into the Kenilworth Lodge Sunday from the 2007 Highlands County Bike Fest, he also hoped to ride the 102-mile "Century" course next year.

Smith also thought he should use his recovery as an educational experience for others. He shattered his helmet in the accident, but he said he suffered only minor head injuries. Even before the crash, he said he'd yell at some bicyclists going without their helmets.

But he was most grateful for the support from his family and friends throughout the community helped him make it here. Actually, he says, those friends and the community to him are his family now.

"The amount of prayers they gave me, they are the reason I'm alive today," he said. "I should've died in that accident."

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