By David Downey | Contributing Author
Joseph Furtek didn’t hesitate when requested why he believes he survived an Oct. 18 rockslide that pounded his van with boulders on a freeway within the San Bernardino Mountains.
“There’s no question this was divine intervention,” the 58-year-old Lake Arrowhead resident stated Friday, Nov. 15.
“I mean, I should have died.”
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There have been many who helped.
There was one other driver — an “angel,” Furtek stated — who stopped behind his demolished van alongside Freeway 18 in a spot referred to as “The Narrows,” close to the Crestline turnoff, the place the highway hugs a steep cliff.
“He got out of his car, held my hand and prayed with me,” Furtek stated.
Furtek, who’s 6 toes 6 inches tall and was pinned contained in the collapsed cabin, stated San Bernardino County firefighters reduce him out of the wreckage and stabilized him for an important ambulance trip down the mountain.
“I was bleeding to death,” Furtek added, saying rescuers thought-about amputating his proper leg.
He misplaced about 75% of his blood on the scene.
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When Furtek arrived at Loma Linda College Medical Middle’s trauma middle, surgeons scrambled to save lots of his life — and leg, medical doctors stated. He had suffered a number of compound fractures — together with an particularly extreme fracture to his proper femur or thigh bone — and a concussion.
“He was really on death’s door for the first 72, maybe 96 hours,” stated his sister, Laura Furtek, a nurse who lives in San Luis Obispo.
Laura Furtek organized an internet fundraising marketing campaign to assist pay her brother’s medical bills. The marketing campaign had raised almost $11,500 as of Tuesday morning, Nov. 19.
Boulders got here ‘bouncing down the hill’
Joseph Furtek stated a number of individuals concerned in his rescue have shared with him the main points surrounding the accident. He doesn’t know precisely what occurred as a result of the pressure of the slide knocked him unconscious.
“I don’t remember anything two days prior to the accident,” he stated in an interview from Loma Linda. “I don’t remember a thing.”
“And I don’t remember anything after the accident. I don’t remember ever being admitted to this hospital.”
Furtek stated that simply final week he was proven images of the twisted pile of steel that previously was his Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van.
“When I saw them it made me appreciate how lucky I am,” he stated.
In a photograph revealed the day of the slide, a boulder is seen instantly in entrance of the van and one other is seen resting subsequent to the motive force’s door. The driving force-side door is open. The cabin space is caved in.
“These rocks were so huge that they probably came bouncing down the hill,” Furtek stated.
Whereas he considers himself fortunate, luck doesn’t equate to consolation.
Furtek has endured a lot ache. And he has largely been confined to a hospital mattress.
“It’s driving me crazy,” he stated.
Alert and sporting a full head of hair and a grey beard, Furtek moved his arms and left leg comparatively freely whereas sitting up in mattress in the course of the interview. However his badly broken proper foot was wrapped in a lavender boot bearing a purple label that learn: “Do not stand or walk in boot.”
“If I get out of bed, an alarm goes off and a bunch of people rush to the room,” he stated.
Furtek stated he has been informed he should not put weight on his proper foot till Jan. 24.
Rehabilitation isn’t any ‘cakewalk’
Nonetheless, the journey to hopefully regaining full use of that leg is underway.
On Friday night time, Furtek stated he was being transferred to a rehabilitation middle within the Loma Linda complicated, the place he’s set to spend the following a number of weeks. His rehabilitation program entails workouts three hours a day, six days every week.
“It’s not going to be a cakewalk,” he stated. “I’m not looking forward to it.”
Dr. Rebecca Rajfer, a Loma Linda traumatologist, stated the prognosis for strolling is “pretty good.”
“But he will need months of therapy in the meantime,” Rajfer stated.
“Learning to walk again is a lot of work.”
Rajfer stated Furtek has undergone six orthopedic surgical procedures and procedures, together with “cleanouts” to take away micro organism and particles from wounds to stop an infection.
Dr. Thomas Donaldson, chair of Loma Linda’s Division of Orthopaedic Surgical procedure, stated Furtek suffered “devastating” accidents, and notably to the massive femur bone in his higher proper leg. A part of that bone is lacking, he stated.
Rajfer stated traumatologist Dr. Jason Chen carried out a life-saving surgical procedure on Furteks’ femur when he arrived on the hospital.
A number of days later, on Oct. 24, Rajfer surgically realigned his femur.
Furtek stated he’s grateful for the medical doctors and nurses who’re serving to him and conserving a watchful eye on his situation.
“They’ve been awesome,” he stated.
Earlier than his switch Friday to the rehabilitation middle, Furtek was being watched intently in a room on the hospital’s fifteenth flooring. From there, he had a view of the mountains — the positioning of the rockslide.
“It was right over there,” Furtek stated on a latest cloudy morning, stating the window. “You can see the Crestline turnoff … when it is clear.”
Man by no means anticipated such an accident
Based on the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, 25 to 50 individuals are killed yearly in the USA by landslides and particles flows.
Dwelling in Lake Arrowhead for the previous a number of years, Furtek stated he knew now and again that rocks tumble onto native mountain roads corresponding to Freeway 18. However he by no means imagined he would change into the sufferer of a slide.
“I didn’t anticipate this is the way my life was going to go,” Furtek stated. “It’s crazy. I mean, it really is.”
The rockslide occurred at a time when Furtek stated he was shifting ahead from a divorce and a DUI conviction. In June, Furtek pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor DUI and was sentenced to probation.
Furtek stated he had been attempting to promote his Lake Arrowhead home. And he had simply paid $200,000 money for the van, which he deliberate to make use of as a short lived house.
Furtek stated he hoped — and nonetheless hopes — to relocate to the San Luis Obispo space.
An completed salesperson, Furtek stated he spent greater than 30 years promoting medical units earlier than retiring in 2023.
As a result of the accident created monetary challenges, along with the bodily ones, Furtek stated he intends to work once more — as soon as his proper leg heals.
In a welcome growth, his sister stated he has healed to the purpose the place he’s starting to regain his humorousness.
“He’s a big guy,” Laura Furtek stated. “He’s a big personality.”
Laura Furtek stated her brother isn’t bitter.
“There is not an ounce of, ‘Why did this happen to me?’” she stated. “He said, ‘God spared me for a reason, so I’m going to make the best of it.’”
Workers author Brian Rokos contributed to this report.
HOW TO HELP
A GoFundMe fundraiser has been set as much as assist pay for Joseph Furtek’s medical bills.
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