It was an eerily familiar scene before Justin Carey on Monday as he entered the hospital room at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center — only this time, the teen wasn’t the one lying in the bed.
He and his family came to see 34-year-old Paul Adams, who was struck Feb. 20 by an alleged hit-and-run driver while walking along a road in Vancouver’s Truman neighborhood.
Two tragic crashes allegedly caused by two members of the same family each cost Carey, then 16, and Adams one of their legs.
“It brings back a lot of memories and hours here,” Carey’s mother, Janette Chumley, said of their visit. “I’m a little anxious. But they’re both here and that’s all that matters.”
Amputated legs
Adams’ lower left leg was amputated a few weeks ago. It will likely be months, he said, before he knows if he can keep his right leg, which is badly broken and required bone-graft surgery last week.
“What happened to you, I hope happens to me,” Adams told Carey, 19. “There are so many similarities. There’s no way the universe can let me lose two legs.”
The lower half of Carey’s right leg was amputated after he was struck June 10, 2013, by a car as he waited for a school bus along Northeast 82nd Avenue in Battle Ground. He was found later, lying in the bushes, by a tow truck driver.
The driver who struck Carey, Shaun Johnson, is the mother of Joshua Johnson, Adams’ alleged hit-and-run driver. She is serving a three-year prison sentence after being twice convicted of vehicular assault.
Court records indicate that methamphetamine may have played a role in both crashes.
Carey shook Adams’ hand and embraced the man’s mother, Nancy Peterson, as he made his way into the hospital room accompanied by his service dog, Shiva.
“It’s funny because it’s so similar. That’s the crazy part. It’s the same family,” Carey said of their situations.
The two survivors compared their injuries, hospital stays and obstacles they’ve encountered, and in Carey’s case, how he’s overcome them.
“I don’t remember the day I got hit or the day before that or the day before that,” Adams told Carey.
“It’ll come back,” Carey assured him.
They talked about their phantom limb pain — a sensation in which they feel pain where their legs used to be — and Carey showed Adams his prosthetic leg.
“That’s going to be awesome to be a cyborg,” Adams joked as he learned about the microchip inside the prosthesis.
Carey’s father, Jim Carey, told Adams that he was heartbroken when his son lost his leg. “But he’s doing massively well so there’s proof that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
The two men’s mothers discussed their emotional experiences.
“I never in my life have seen so much trauma to a person,” Peterson said of her son’s injuries. “It’s traumatic for a mother to see,” Chumley agreed.
Peterson asked Chumley how she was able to handle everything.
“I decided early on I had to let it go. I didn’t want to be consumed by it,” Chumley said. However, she said she was sure to attend every court hearing “because I wanted to let the judge see us and know we weren’t OK with things.”
Peterson said she hasn’t yet learned how to let go of her hateful feelings.
“Time. It’ll take time,” Chumley reassured her.
Peterson plans to attend Joshua Johnson’s arraignment Friday afternoon in Clark County Superior Court, at which time he’ll be formally charged with hit-and-run resulting in injury and with possession of methamphetamine.
“I could(n’t) care less what happens to that guy,” Adams said of Johnson.
He said his focus right now is on recovery.
