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At first glance, Gary appears to be your average three-year-old -- happy, playful, precocious. On a sunny April morning, as he plays in with his Aunt Judy, laughing, throwing colored plastic bricks across the living room, it looks like just another day in the life of a growing child. But today is the two-year anniversary of a horrible accident that orphaned young Gary, an accident that may have been the destiny of his Unbreakable life.
The day when everything changed had started innocuously enough; Gary's parents, Rod and Robin, both 36, and his older sisters Lysa, 8, and Shyla, 6, were leaving a birthday party at a cousin's house in Idaho.
Gary, then just 13 months old, was strapped into a car seat in back of the family station wagon. At the junction of Highways 20 and 75 the family car went through a stop sign at an estimated 70 miles an hour, broadsiding a tractor-trailer unit hauling highly flammable pentane. The tractor-trailer rolled over on top of the family station wagon, killing Rod, Robin, Lysa, and Shyla instantly. The driver of the tractor trailer died later from massive head injuries. Seven hundred gallons of pentane leaked from the tractor-trailer, filling the roadway. Luckily, state police happened on the scene within minutes and cordoned off the area. The imminent risk of fire forced the evacuation of 114 people from a nearby trailer park.
Firefighters and paramedics were shocked to find young Gary in the back of the family station wagon, pinned under the wreckage and awash in pentane -- but otherwise unscathed. He seemed fine, but as a precaution the youngster was airlifted to Midway Hospital, where it was confirmed he had sustained only superficial wounds including a slight abrasion on his arm caused by the St. Dymphnas medal he wore around his wrist. Meanwhile, emergency crews shut down power to the accident area until the spill could be contained and the remaining pentane removed from the damaged tanker. A paramedic on the scene, asked by a local news crew to comment on Gary's survival, responded that living through such a crash had beaten "astronomical" odds and was "miraculous."
It was not the first tragedy in Gary's family: Five years before Gary was born, his father's brother Raymond had been electrocuted while installing an antenna on his sports bar's roof. A year later, another of his father's brothers, Ronald, had been crushed by a forklift at a carpet factory in Minnesota.
Gary's aunt Judy, who has adopted the boy, says, "You would imagine that Gary would have been traumatized by the experience. But he is actually a very happy boy, always laughing, never wanting to sleep. He's inexhaustible, really, and has never been sick one day in his life, at least not while living with us." When he reaches 18, Gary will be the beneficiary of life insurance policies taken out by his late father (who was a prostate cancer survivor) and mother (who had had two kidney transplants before Gary was born). As his aunt Judy puts it, "I know this child was blessed. There is some stronger force at work here." | |
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TEN OF THE MOST DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS IN THE US:
- Addison, TX. Belt Line Road and Midway Road; 263 accidents, annually.
- Plano, TX. West Park Boulevard and Preston Road; 249 accidents, annually.
- Schaumburg, IL. Golf Road and North Roselle Road; 244 accidents, annually.
- Beverly Hills, CA. Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards; 242 accidents, annually.
- Dallas, TX. Belt Line Road and Preston Road; 241 accidents, annually.
- Huntington Beach, CA. Adams Avenue and Brookhurst Street; 232 accidents, annually.
- Sacramento, CA. Fair Oaks Boulevard and Watt Avenue; 212 accidents, annually.
- Clearwater, FL. Sunset Boulevard and US 19; 211 accidents, annually.
- Las Vegas, NV. Rainbow Boulevard and Sahara Avenue; 207 accidents, annually.
- Chesterfield, MI. Gratiot Avenue and 23 Mile Road; 204 accidents, annually.
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