Grass Valley Man Hoping To Be Home By December One Month After Crash Paralyzes Him
GRASS VALLEY (CBS13) — Saturday marks one month since a Grass Valley man was left paralyzed after crashing his bike when he came face-to-face with a gravel truck.
Tim Webb is learning how to do everything all over again.
"The hardest part of recovery is knowing that I'm not going to walk again," he said.
He says that day in October has haunted him every day since.
"I live it over and over again," he said. "Coming around the corner, seeing the truck in my lane, going, 'Oh my God, what to do I do?'"
He was on Hammonton-Smartville Road on his way to work when a gravel truck going in the opposite direction, made a wide turn.
He was forced to make a split decision—crash head on into the truck, or veer off the road.
He made a choice to live.
"Going over the handlebars, hitting the ground feeling everything break," he said.
He felt his ribs and back break as he tumbled down an embankment and into barbed wire. He couldn't move his lower body or legs.
But he could move his hands. He texted his fiancee Rose Galen two words:
"Crash 911."
She found Tim before emergency crews.
The driver of that truck still hasn't been found a month later.
Now Tim is learning to do what most of us don't think twice about at the Sutter Rehabilitation Institute.
"There's a lot of pain and suffering and stuff I have to do just to learn to put a pair of socks on," Tim said.
His goal is to be home by December to be with his kids again and to learn to live a new normal.
The couple says they're having to redo parts of their home to fit Tim's wheelchair inside. They're holding a fundraiser on Nov. 23 from noon to 4 p.m. to cover the costs of the renovations and a wheelchair accessible van.
