Copeland: ‘Fortunate to Be Alive’

Copeland: ‘Fortunate to Be Alive’

BY DANA DURBIN
Rice News Staff
May 28, 1998

James Copeland does not remember the actual accident, nor the time shortly
thereafter.

But 11 days after being hit by a car while riding his bike, he said, he first
became aware something was wrong when he couldn’t move his legs. Making a quick
inventory, he thought of a sentence and said it to himself in several languages
to see if his mind was OK. His sparkling smile explained the relief he felt
when he realized he could make all of the translations.

"I consider myself extremely fortunate in so many ways," Copeland
said. "I feel fortunate to be alive."

From his hospital bed at The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR),
the Rice professor of linguistics translates physical therapy materials into
Spanish for the hospital’s Spanish-speaking patients. Though he’s recovering
from severe injuries sustained when he was hit by a car while bike riding last
month, the professor’s academic side is obviously still at work.

On the morning of April 11, Copeland was involved in an accident as he headed
home at the end of his last training ride for the MS-150, the annual bike tour
from Houston to Austin that raises money for the National Multiple Sclerosis
Society.

After waiting for two light cycles at the intersection of Westpark and Newcastle,
Copeland recalled, he was struck nearly head-on by a car as he turned left off
of Westpark to head south on Newcastle. He was going home to attend his children’s
11 a.m. baptism rehearsal.

Waiting for her husband to return, Chris Copeland said she knew something was
wrong when he didn’t arrive at home on time. A terrifying phone call soon explained
Copeland’s tardiness. On the way to the hospital, Copeland was coherent enough
to give paramedics his phone number. The caller informed Chris of the accident,
and she rushed to meet the ambulance at Hermann Hospital’s shock trauma unit.

In the accident, Copeland endured four impacts–first hitting the grill of
the ’91 Plymouth, then the hood, followed by the windshield, and finally landing
on the ground. He suffered two broken vertebrae, a fractured jaw, nose and other
cranial damage, a compressed sternum and broken ribs, a broken hand, and a crushed
leg and knee, to name the most severe. From the looks of his helmet, which Chris
said is cracked through and through, things could have been much worse.

"It was probably the worst thing I’d ever seen," Chris said, describing
her husband’s body, which was swollen with fluid. His fingers, she motioned
with her own, were as big around as a silver dollar, and his chest and head
were so swollen doctors believed Copeland to be an obese man. "You never
would have recognized him.’

The night of the accident, doctors told Chris to prepare for the worst, adding
that if her husband lived he would probably be paralyzed. That evening, doctors
also discovered what they believed to be an aortic leak which would have signaled
big trouble.

Further tests revealed his heart was not damaged–a diagnosis, Chris said,
that made dealing with possible paralysis easier, as they could learn to live
with that limitation. "The helmet–that’s what kept him alive," Chris
said.

Copeland’s top physical condition at the time of the accident also contributed
to his survival and subsequent recovery. Earlier that week, the couple, both
of whom were training for the MS-150 bike tour, had completed a 60-mile training
ride in three hours.

During an eight-and-a-half-hour surgery, doctors popped bone fragments out
of his spinal cord and inserted a rod, and repaired his leg, adding pins to
aid in the healing. Copeland has improved from barely wiggling his toes a few
weeks ago to gaining control of many of his leg muscles. He won’t be able to
walk for six to eight months while his leg is healing, but Sherri Barash, TIRR’s
physical therapy spinal cord injury coordinator, believes he’ll be on his feet
with the aid of a brace within a year.

"He’s 60 years old, but he’s in the shape of a 30-year-old," Barash
said. "He was in really great shape before [the accident], so that has
helped him. But he’s in pain, so he has to take it slow."

While the road to recovery will be long, Copeland, an avid bike rider since
the ’70s, hopes to one day tackle the MS-150 again.

"I was very busy at Rice," he said. "My desk was full of things
I needed to take care of. So, I miss Rice a lot. I think what I miss most, though,
is the daily routine at home with the kids."

Copeland’s daily routine may be altered while he makes his recovery, but he
will get his wish to return home soon, as his release date is set for early
June.

To his comrades on campus, Copeland said, "The support from Rice has been
really fantastic. I would really like to thank all of the Rice administration,
faculty, students and others who have been so encouraging."