Dr. Laurie Roth remembers on the anniversary of her near fatal motorcycle wreck.

Four years ago as of August 25th 2009, I found myself two minutes from death in the middle of the road after a deer hit me while I was riding my motorcycle. I crashed on my head, breaking nearly everything on my face and giving me severe brain injuries. My spleen was also punctured but most the severe injuries were from the neck up.

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This can’t be happening! That day I had asked my buddy Karen Nelli, children’s music pastor at my church and friend to ride with me that day. Usually, I rode alone. If I had that day I would have been dead at the scene very quickly. She recalls turning the corner but not seeing me and my bike following after I turned at mile marker 14 coming down from Mount Spokane. We were checking out the lodge. She stopped for a few minutes waiting for me, then feeling concerned, turned back around the corner only to find my unconscious and bloody body lying in the road, my bike 30 feet away from me and no deer in site. She thought it was a hit and run at first, not seeing the deer until later. Frantically, Karen tried to remove debris from the road from my throat so I could breathe, then panicking, grabbed her cell phone, which didn’t work in the mountains. She started yelling for help and praying for a miracle. Fortunately, Karen’s screaming caught the attention of two builders working on a house somewhere in the woods nearby. When they heard the crash, at first they thought someone in a truck had lost their load, then realized there was something very wrong when they heard Karen’s screaming for help. They got in their work truck and zoomed over there. Thankfully they had just put in a phone at their work site that week. They called for immediate help. Cars and witnesses started to show up and a man with a cell phone that actually worked in that remote location called for Life flight, the Hellicopter/1st responder crew. All there thought it was life and death. First responders finally arrived 45 minutes later. I was told much later by one of the flight nurses who intubated me at the scene, that I was about 2 minutes from death when they got to me and barely breathing due to my lungs filling up with so much blood. Much to the shock of many, I made it to the hospital alive. I was in a coma and unrecognizable. This started an odyssey of healing, therapy, survival and work that started and is in motion to this very day. I had broken my jaw in 3 places, the bones above my top lip in two places, shattered my left eye socket, crushed my forehead, shredded my mouth and severed the roof of my mouth. Then there were the numerous brain injuries. The hospital staff was wonderful and just doing their job. Once stabilized in the first hospital, I was then transferred to a recovery hospital and brain injury ward. This is when the real work started. How can I forget the daily mental exercises and story problems that practically gave me another brain injury? A typical example of my story problems each day was the following:

Your daughter Suzie has a piano lesson at 4:00 and Danny has soccer practice at 3:30 and you need to get groceries. What do you do? After about a billion of these little situation stories that seemed “dumber” than a post to me, I started answering them the way I thought they must think I would. “Well, the only thing I can think of is I’ll have to steal a car then rush into the corner market and shop lift since there would be no time to stand in line and buy groceries. I’ll then skid to a stop at my daughter’s piano lesson and push her out on the curb. Of course, I’d have to race off for affect!”

Obviously, my twisted sense of humor and apparently ego hadn’t been crushed entirely.

After nearly two months in the hospital I came home

I sure have bum luck sometimes. I finally had a 10 body; I was 5”7 and 120 pounds but I had a Frankenstein head and drooled. I started the endless therapy and work at home to try and grab my life back in some way. I talked like a drunk, drooled and couldn’t close my lips together. I would practice my brains out talking in the mirror and forming words. After my second muscle and nerve surgery in my mouth I could finally put my lips together and form a real word. I intensified my practice and started to dream about radio even more. I could think again, maybe just maybe I could talk again. Then there was my eye. I would also do daily practice trying to get my left eye and eyelid to open and track. Double vision was severe and everywhere making it very hard to shop, cook, drive and read any news. Doing show prep and reading anything I had prepared for a show was all but impossible for nearly my entire first year back.

I was offered my time slot back on national radio 10 months later by IRN-USA Network.

June 2006 I was excited to start my national show again back in my old time slot of 7-10pm PAC each day. The photo below was my first night back. I could almost talk normally, could think; most my scars were gone and I was on two satellites and had a chance in radio again! Granted, I probably only had 3 people and a dog listening but at least it would be 3 people and a dog and not 2 people and a mouse. That was a start. A few months before starting back, I had found Patrick Carey, my current engineer and call screener. He is most extraordinary. He has been loyal and faithful the whole time! God also brought me two wonderful sponsors who came on and didn’t complain, though I had so few stations. The photo below is my first night back behind the Mic.

4 years later, How has this experience affected me?

I get up at 5:30 am now and have more time to pray and read my Bible. I have my coffee, light a candle and pursue the Lord. He meets me and I have drawn closer to Him through this build back over the last 4 years. My family continues to try and recover from financial struggles to this day. We had no health insurance and were at the time only living off the humble income received from my radio show. It was a nearly $500,000 accident. We had two needy adopted children who were 2 and 8 at the time. Financial challenges that are huge and ongoing so often break up marriages and render people hopeless to function. We have continued to trust the Lord and take one day at a time as we build back. Things worth having don’t always come easy but God does really provide! I couldn’t possibly thank all the people who have helped us through this ordeal. We received money, food, encouragement, a sea of prayers, second chances and much love. Thank you all! My show and life are ongoing projects. I am currently building my show back with stations and an Internet audience. I am around 45 stations now and climbing. Folks can listen to my show live or archived at therothshow.com. Never give up!