Hey Everyone, Before I go into my rant about how frustrating it is being a quadriplegic dependent on a respirator, I need to go back and explain what exactly happened to me, so here it is…
Just as every morning comes, I woke up on July 11, 1994, ready to start my day, but little did I know that in a few short hours my life as I knew it would forever be changed. On July 11th I was heading to a church camp at Voyagers in Irvine, California when I became an innocent victim of a police pursuit. My mom was driving my sister (who was in the front passenger seat) and I (in the middle backseat) when a criminal who was fleeing from the police ran a red light broadsiding our vehicle. As a result, the accident left me a (C1, C2) quadriplegic dependent on a respirator, where my mom and sister were fine.
July 11, 1994, has forever been and always will be a memory in my mind, because not only did I become a quadriplegic that day, but I actually was not supposed to live. In fact, the only reason I am even here today is that a nurse happened to witness the accident and gave me mouth to mouth until the paramedics arrived. Right after the accident, I was transferred to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, California to see if I was going to be okay. During this time then and even to this day, I have no recollection of the events because I was in a coma due to the impact of the speeding car, which was equivalent to me falling from a 7-story building. For the first time since my accident almost 19 years ago my dad told me what that day was like for him on January 30, 2013.
At the time of the accident, my dad worked at the Orange County Sanitation District where he was the lab supervisor. Upon his work hearing about the accident from my family, his work was trying to find him because he was in a meeting and not in his office. When my dad’s work finally found him, another individual drove him to the hospital in fear that he may get in a car accident himself. As my dad reached Western Medical Center, he was escorted into a small room where he was told by doctors to start preparing for after-death arrangements because they did not think I was going to live 24 hours, which no parent ever wants hear. My dad who was in shock at hearing this wanted to speak to me, but the doctors informed him that I could not speak because I was in a coma from the accident.
As a result of being in a coma from the accident and suffering a spinal cord injury impairing me from breathing on my own, no one knew if there was brain damage or the severity of the injury. In order to find out the severity doctors wanted me to wake up on my own. My dad was against this because he was scared I would be frightened now that I had tubes and IVs attached to my body. When I woke up for the first time, I had a tube in my mouth, and my mom and dad were at the foot of my bed. I still remember the first words my mom said, “Hi honey, we were in a car accident.”
After the initial moment I woke up, the rest of my experience at the hospital is somewhat a blur. My dad told me after I woke up the medical team did all sorts of tests on me specifically to see if I could feel my legs, arms, and body. To this day the only part of my experience at the hospital that I remember was watching Free Willy and eating Haagen Dazs Cookies and Cream. I eventually was discharged from Western Medical Center several weeks later and went to a rehabilitation center.
I officially did not return home until sometime in early October, three months after my accident. The day I left the rehabilitation center for home was joyous and scary at the same time. The last time I left my house I was a normal 7-year-old kid who was able to walk, run, and play games with friends, but now I was an 8-year-old going home in a wheelchair and on a respirator. I had been in a hospital room for nearly three months, and the comfort of four walls around me felt as if I was home; to others that may have felt like being in prison.
When we pulled up to our house the memories of the past filled my brain because I thought everything was going to go back to normal, but that just shows the innocents of a child’s mind. Our house was located on the corner of a block, and everyone pulled up to the side in order to drop individuals off at our house. However, the side of our house was lined with grass and had a hill that went up to our front door where steps lay. I thought that was the way I was going to enter my home, but I was wrong.
Instead of pulling up to the side of our house we drove to the back alley and entered through the garage. Upon entering my backyard through the detached garage, my parents rolled me up to our back door and brought me inside. It had been so long since I had been home that it felt as if I was a stranger. My room, which was upstairs was no longer accessible to me and had been moved downstairs in the dining room. Life as I previously knew it had forever changed.
I eventually went back to school in April of 1995, missing the majority of what should have been my third-grade class. So instead of trying to learn everything in a few short months, my parents decided to hold me back and repeat those last few months of second-grade. I eventually graduated from elementary school in 1999, middle school in 2001, high school in 2005, and believe it or not I graduated from college in 2011. This is where my frustration begins.
Two years after my accident I became friend’s with Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) and James Keach (Producer – Walk the Line) where they encouraged me to pursue a career in film because they said, “There is nothing we do you cannot.” When I was young Jane and James would try to show me the art of filmmaking whenever I was on the set of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Women, but unfortunately, because I was so young I did not have any interest. It was not until I was 16 years old during the summer of 2003, that I realized that maybe Jane and James were right.
James Keach (Director), Roland “Ozzie” Smith (Cinematographer) and I on the set of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman located at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills
Since I decided to try and pursue a career in film, I needed to learn how to become a filmmaker myself by going to film school. Jane and James told me I should attend Chapman University’s — Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, in Orange, California. When I entered Chapman, my goal was for me to become a director, but I soon found out my real passion was in producing.
There were two main reasons why I did not like directing: first, I did not like everyone looking at me in order to tell them where to go in terms of how to make the film and second, I did not like the fact that I hated every film I made. What I really enjoyed about producing was that I was still apart of the creative process, but was not directly in charge of creating the actual film — that is the director. Being a producer kind of feels like a parent handing over the keys to the car after their 16-year-old just got their drivers license. The 16-year-old took the classes, passed the test and hopefully they will make smart decisions.
After six years at Chapman, I graduated in 2011, with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film Production. What is frustrating me about being a quadriplegic is I have never had a job in the industry and all my friends who I graduated with have. The only way I ever see myself getting a job is if I successfully sell a script and some how get a producer credit, which is a 1 out of million chance. The odds of making it in the film industry are very low for normal individuals who do not have physical disabilities, so the odds are even more stacked up against me.
Even though my friends have jobs in the industry, no one has made it big yet, but at least they are either working for someone prominent in the film industry or doing grunt work, which I cannot do. So here I am with a degree in film and a very functioning brain, but the only thing I can do is either read books, write (which I am not very good at) or take classes at a community college, which is not a job or a career. I feel as if I am in limbo.
Although I am frustrated with being a quadriplegic right now, I do some what believe my accident has been a blessing. I have experienced a life that is drastically different, and it has made me who I am today. I have no idea where I am going to be in five or ten years, whether I will be a successful producer or just a professional student, but I guess I am just going to see when I get there…
The following link is an article written about me in The Los Angeles Times, the day after the accident.
Trent McGee 