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Matt McCoy: Blind Luck
Peg Meier
Staff Writer
STAR TRIBUNE
Published August 14, 2005
Life is good. Fantastic, actually. Matthew McCoy says he is "the luckiest unlucky guy who ever lived." As he cheerfully told a sympathetic bus driver the other day, "I'm lucky that my vision is the only thing I've lost."
McCoy, who's 26 and legally blind, was hoping for one more piece of fortune, though -- one he believes he deserves.
He desperately wanted his old job back as a machine operator for FilmTec Corp. in Edina -- the job he had before his car crash almost two years ago. The one he so enjoyed. The one he's sure he can do well again.
But his old company sent him a letter this month saying essentially: Sorry, no. The workplace couldn't be made safe for him, the letter said, and safety comes first.
McCoy is heartbroken. "I don't mind saying it: I was one of their best workers," he said. With a few modifications to the workplace, he believes he could again be a good production technician. "If they knew what I can do, it would be ridiculous for them not to hire me back."
Grinning, he added, "I can see pretty good for a blind guy." He does have some vision -- more, in fact, than most of his fellow students at the Vision Loss Resources (VLR) in Minneapolis. His right eye is almost completely blind. His left eye sees ahead and to the right, but poorly, about 20/320.
McCoy started at FilmTec on Sept. 11, 2001, just hours after the terrorists hit the World Trade Center. That wasn't a bad omen for him. From the start, he loved the workplace. He had spent five years at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls -- three years majoring in history, two in physics -- but he was sick of study and wanted to produce something.
He liked the firm's team approach, respected his colleagues and supervisors and relished the responsibility given to workers. The money was good: about $2,600 a month.
But almost two years later on Oct. 2, still living in River Falls, he was in a horrendous crash on Interstate Hwy. 94 in Woodbury. Although he was ticketed as a younger man for seven traffic violations, it appears this crash was not his fault. He was headed west on his way to work, seatbelt buckled. Another car swerved to avoid a third car and hit his 1991 Pontiac Bonneville, which had no air bag. It rolled end-over-end three times and ended up in the eastbound lane.
His car almost landed on one driven by an off-duty emergency medical technician named Dawn McCune. She saved his life. His head was gushing blood, the skull split open from front to back. His lung was punctured, three ribs were broken, two vertebrae in his neck and one in his back were busted and bones in his left hand were smashed.
'Miracle boy'
He was unconscious when McCune started working on him. She didn't think he could possibly survive. As an ambulance took him away, she said a silent prayer asking God to take him quickly and gently. He was whisked to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where he says some still know him as Miracle Boy.
McCoy wasn't expected to live through the night. Then he wasn't expected to emerge from the coma. Then he certainly wasn't expected to overcome the trauma to his brain.
His sister, Joanna Marek, remembers the medical staff not wanting to get her hopes up and saying that even if he lived, he wouldn't be the same Matt. At best, he'd live in a nursing home, severely disabled. A doctor who knew of his family's love of games -- Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, 500 and cribbage -- delivered bad news in these terms: Matthew won't ever come home and be able to sit at a table and play cards again.
The docs were wrong this time. McCoy loves this part of his story: "I'm not a heavily religious person, but I came out of my coma on the day our family priest came to the hospital and sprinkled holy water on me. Half an hour later, I started to open my eyes. What do you think of that coincidence?"
Another coincidence: It was his sister's birthday, Oct. 13, and his awakening was the loveliest of gifts.
His face was reconstructed. Surgeons asked the family for photos to help put him back the way he used to look. McCoy pretends to be upset with his parents: "Why didn't you give them a picture of Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise?"
Months of physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and hand therapy followed. That was accompanied by depression, especially during the slow-healing time while recuperating at his parents' home in Cannon Falls, Minn. He sums up his feelings then: "Poor me. Woe is me. Hating the world. Hating the blindness. Missing work."
He grinned. "And here I am. Walking, talking, joking, looking for work, smoking." (He's trying to cut down on cigarettes.) His mother, Cathy McCoy, said, "He's the same person he was before. It's weird and wonderful he came out the way he did, after severe brain injuries. We owe Regions Hospital a lot."
Dr. Michael McGonigal, director of the hospital's trauma center, cared for McCoy when he was rushed in. "To see someone with those extensive injuries come back to his normal self is very, very uncommon," McGonigal said. "It's something we see once every 10 years or so."
Of halos and muggings
McCoy's former employer, FilmTec, makes elements for reverse-osmosis water filtration systems. The company paid his full salary for six months after his injuries. (Now he's getting disability payments from Social Security and from a long-term disability insurance policy.) Colleagues and supervisors visited McCoy in the hospital and during recovery.
But FilmTec sent him a letter Aug. 1 saying it won't hire him back in his old job. The Dow Chemical Co. subsidiary routinely makes accommodations for disabled employees, but the Edina factory has lots of huge pieces of moving equipment that pose high risk of injury for someone with limited vision, said Rosemarie Rung, a company spokeswoman.
"My heart aches for this guy," she said. "He's the type of employee we would want to have, but there's nothing we can do to ensure his safety in that area. We encourage him to consider other positions with FilmTec."
Although crushed by the rejection, McCoy remains an optimist. Here's a guy who had to wear a "halo" to stabilize his head for five months. It's enough to make you not want to go to heaven if St. Peter insists on handing out halos, he quipped. But when the medical halo came off after five months, it was oh-so-sweet. "How nice it is to feel a pillow against your head," he said with a sigh.
And he has bigger reasons for gratitude. "I floor people when I tell them this: I think the crash is the best thing that ever happened to me."
Huh?
"See, before the accident, I tried to be as cool as the next guy, make everybody like me, fit in. But now, I really like me. If somebody has a problem with me, that's their problem. It all helped me accept who I am. It's all so clear now. I'm never going to be like the next guy. I have scars. I'm blind."
He uses a tall white cane when he walks outdoors, not so much to detect barriers but to warn people, "especially little old ladies," that he doesn't see them well. He calls himself a big old farm boy (6 feet 1, 275 pounds), and he doesn't want to ram into anyone.
But it ain't easy being blind, he said. Consider the incident when two thugs got his money. He had moved into the apartment that he subleases from Vision Loss Resources and was robbed one night in the hallway. He hadn't had a chance to open a bank account in Minneapolis and was carrying about $500 in cash. Coming at him from behind, the thieves put a gun to his neck and demanded his wallet.
When he tells the story, people ask him, "Did you get a good look at them?" and then realize that's a stupid question.
Vacuuming blind
Short of a gun, little stops Matt McCoy.
He's learned at the Vision Loss Resources to cross busy streets, take buses, adapt a computer with low-vision aids. He's back to the woodworking he loves, thanks to a few adaptive tools and good instruction in the VLR workshop; he made his coffee table and finished a curio cabinet for his parents. He's learned to cook safely and to read Braille.
Despite that emergency-room prognosis, McCoy now can play cribbage using Braille cards or big-print cards.
He and his visually impaired buddies play pool, go to the beach, practice navigating around town and go to movies (some films have audio commentary for the seeing-impaired). He keeps a tidy apartment, using methods he learned at school. You can vacuum-clean a room without missing spots if you mentally divide a room into sections, he learned.
Lynn Neumeister, program supervisor of VLR's rehabilitation center, said the staff correctly sized up McCoy right away as someone who'd have fun there. "He wanted to learn, to become independent," she said.
Gordon Oien taught him mobility skills and was impressed with how well he learned to use the bus system. Oien called him "a warm, friendly guy with a good dose of intelligence and common sense."
Mary Barlow, his cooking instructor, said, "He could be sitting at home with Mom and Dad, doing nothing, having a cold one and living off Social Security. He didn't want that. He's a worker."
McCoy is no Pollyanna. He says he'd give up a lot to have his full vision back. "I wish I'd stubbed my toe [the day of the car crash] or not found my shoe right away -- anything to change the timing by 5 seconds."
What he really misses is driving a car. He speaks wistfully of once driving an 18-wheeler. But still, life is great. All he needs is a job, he says. Oh, and one more thing, if wishes can be granted: a girlfriend, please.
Somebody who has a good sense of humor, someone who enjoys being alive.
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