| Miracles Never Cease Part I Written By: Donna Lynn Eaton This is a true story for all the people who do not believe in great miracles today. Let me start from the beginning. June 10, 1979 my brother Robert Edward Lashmit and I received Christ as our Savior. He was 17 years old and I was 19. We joined a local church and we sang in the choir. Our lives were changing and it was great. Not long after that my brother joined the army. He has always loved everything to do with the army, even as a child. I was happy for him, because he was very excited about it. When we told our pastor he didn’t seem as happy for him, I didn't under stand why. I knew that Robert wouldn't be at church and we would miss him. But I guess the pastor figured he would get out of church. We went to visit him in Fort Jackson SC for graduation from boot camp, Robert looked so good and he loved it. He joined the 82nd Airborne and moved to Fort Brag NC, to him that was the greatest thing he could do. He earned awards for expert rifleman, he was apart of the Reforger "80" 3d BN ABN 325th INF. He then became a mechanic. On Feb. 2 1981, he was working on a gamma goat (army vehicle), he was inside the garage, and the doors were shut. He was leaning in under the hood and it was knocked out of gear somehow. Robert and the vehicle busted through the doors. He got a broken arm so bad it needed surgery. They put two steel plates in his arm and 11 screws and nuts that were permanent. The sergeant told my mother that he was very lucky because that door was the only one left that was wood. They were in the process of putting in all metal doors; they just had not got to that one yet. He came home on leave. While he was home he and my father went back to Brag to pick up Robert's car that needed some repair, they were going to fix it while he was home on leave. On Feb.13th 1981, he and my father left for Fort Bragg. My sister and I were at work, it was about 7:30 PM, I got a Message that my father and brother were in a wreck to call home, and I was told that it was not serious. I called my mother at work to find out about it, she had not been called. I finally called Willie Davis my father’s girlfriend, her kids told me where to find them. Willie had gone to get my father; he was at a hospital different from Robert. Robert was taken to Greensboro Surgical Hospital. We were told he was at Moses Cone Hospital, but all the doctors were at the other hospital and they could get Robert to it before the doctors could get to Moses Cone. And by the grace of God we went to the hospital where he was at, first. (we didn't know anything about Greensboro or where any hospital was. We just followed the first hospital sign we saw and it lead us to the right one.) As we went in the hospital, in the hall was a stretcher that was half covered in blood and it had my brother’s clothes on it. That moment we knew that Robert couldn't be alive. The doctor came out and told us that Robert was in very critical condition. He had been cut from temple to temple across the right eye. He said that Robert would probably not make it through surgery and if he did he would probably be a vegetable. I could not believe this, it could not be happening. I went in the bathroom and got on my knees I prayed and cried. Daddy said “they were on the way home with the car hooked to a tow bar. He ran off the road and when he came back on the road, the car he was towing jerked on the road so fast that it pulled dads car sideways in one lane and my brother’s car was sideways across the other lane of on coming traffic. It was hit by a bus and sandwiched both cars together like a sandwich. As my brother looked out his window to see it, the trunk lid of his car came through his window hitting him in the head. My father said when he picked Robert up off the seat it looked like the top of his head fell off. This scared him to death. He just knew Robert was dead. My father was cut and bruised up, but his only pain was deep, he felt that it was his fault for Robert being hurt. The only one that blamed him was his self, no one else did. We all knew that it could have happened to anyone. Everyone was praying. He was in surgery for over four hours. The doctor came back out and told us that he had a lot of damage to his head. The bones of his forehead were jerked out, his jaw was broken in five places, and it had to be wired shut. All the nerves in the front of his head and eyes were cut. And he was cut about a third of the way through his brain. And he was having severe convulsions, and he was not breathing on his own. The doctor told us that he would probably not live through the night but if he did he may not ever see, hear or talk again. Robert was in a coma too, and the doctor said he may never come out of it. He told us Robert needed all the prayers he could get. And he said that he knew God could do anything and he knew God was helping him do the surgery. He said that he had no idea what he was doing trying to put all the nerves back together in Roberts head. he said he could have never done the surgery without God. We prayed all night, I prayed that God would not take my little brother; I was willing to except him no matter what shape he was in. I knew if he died he would be in Heaven, but I couldn't bare the thought of losing him. I have two sisters and two brothers. My oldest brother was from my father’s first marriage and we didn't grow up with him. So Robert was like my only brother I am close to my sisters like sisters are, but I was always a tomboy. Robert and I were always very close, just like two boys. We finally got to go in and see Robert; his head was swelled so bad that he had no facial features. His head was like a beach ball. He looked so bad it was hard to imagine what he looked like before. His eyes would water from the swelling and injuries and every time a tear would slide down his face, it broke my heart and I cried too. I knew they said he was in a coma and wasn't feeling anything but I was scared they might be wrong and those were tears. I was afraid that he could feel the pain, how do they know if he could feel or not? I was first told that Robert was asleep when the wreck happened, this nearly drove me crazy. I was afraid that Robert would wake up and not be able to see, move, talk or hear, and he wouldn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t take this, but later that night my father told me Robert was not asleep that they had been talking just before the wreck happened. The whole family stayed at the hospital and one would go home to get stuff that we needed. My mother never went home once; she stayed there as long as Robert was there. After about two weeks a nurse came running out to the waiting room crying, I just knew Robert had died but she sit down in front of mama and said “Robert just spoke to me”. This thrilled the whole family. She said that Robert coughed and she said” are you choked or did you just cough” and he said” I coughed ". I know it was not much but it meant that he was not a vegetable and he could talk. A couple days later mama walked into his room and Robert said “Hey mama”, she nearly fainted, Robert was getting his sight back. He could only see in one eye but he could see .His right eye was permanently blind. He kept improving more and more. He needed a lot more surgeries but at least he was stable now. He improved very fast. He was released from Greensboro after only one month and three days. They transferred him to Womack Hospital at Fort Brag on 3-17-81, where they evaluated his condition. He was there for four days. They let him come home for a few days and on 3-25-81 he was flown to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC where he stayed until Dec. 1, 1981. He was discharged from the army as a disabled veteran. Robert came home and he had trouble remembering things, but everything that happened before the wreck he could recall with no problem. His looks had changed and he had a bad temper that he had never had, but his mind was normal as far as knowing everyone and his ways. He ended up getting only 10 thousand dollars out of the wreck, it would have been 27 thousand but the insurance co. said he had to pay the army back for paying his hospital bill. Which that sounded a little funny to me, having to pay back the army! He later got his drivers license back, and bought him a truck. He started dating again and riding cruising the streets as usual .The girls would come around at the first of the month at pay day. He later went into suicidal depression because of the young people up town on the week-ends, they would make fun of him for his looks and all his friends quit coming around because they were ashamed of him. When someone is hurt or sick and in the hospital everyone is there, praying and crying for them to get better then when they come home, how quick family and friends forget it all and start treating them so bad. Like their stupid or don’t even exist. Even his so called friends would call him retarded. We all know how some people can be so cruel. But it's really bad when it's the friends and family that does it. Don't get me wrong Robert has a lot of family that love him very much and would die for him if they had to. But all the love in the world can't take away the hurt you fill when someone is cruel to you. He started going to the VA Hospital in Durham NC .They then decided to go in and rebuild his forehead because he only had a muscle between his brain and skin, this would improve his looks and make his brain more protected from being hurt. One hit in the head could kill him. They went in and took out a rib to make a new bone for his head. The doctors told mama that the x-rays did not even show half the damage that Robert had and they would never go back in his head unless it was life threatening. He finally got all right and got a job at a cotton mill but could not keep it on count of his temper. He joined the Linwood Vol. Fire Dept. he loved that almost as good as he loves the army. |
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