'Curto's Crew' aids crash victim: Man's life radically changed after 2020 Accident in Enfield [Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.]

Feb. 19—Until Sept. 18, 2020, Marc Curto worked at a friend's deli in East Granby, raced radio-controlled cars several times a week, and played with his nieces and nephews so much and so enthusiastically that he proudly claims the title "fun uncle."

He still does all those things, but in radically different ways, all involving use of a power wheelchair.

The event that changed Curto's life occurred as he drove up Depot Hill Road in Enfield on his way to an evening of radio-controlled racing at RC Madness on North Street.

A full-size pickup truck going 96 mph came up behind the compact Ford Escape sport utility vehicle Curto was driving. Heavy braking brought the pickup's speed down to 58 mph 0.5 seconds before impact, police learned from the truck's crash data recorder, or "black box." But the blow rolled the SUV onto its passenger side.

Curto remembers lying across the seats of the overturned SUV, with his head pinned against the passenger window and jammed against his chest.

"I could see my feet, but I couldn't move them," he recalls, adding that he had trouble breathing, partly because he was panicking.

He recalls that someone said to call 911 and that help was on the way. He also remembers screaming, "Call my dad!"

It didn't take long for help to arrive, but it seemed like forever, he says. Once emergency personnel arrived, he recalls screaming, "I can't breathe. Just get me out."

The first responders ripped out the SUV's windshield to free him, he says.

A long night

He was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, where his father, Mike Curto of Windsor Locks, soon joined him. The medical staff wanted the hospital's chief of surgery to operate on Marc in the morning, and a long night of waiting followed, although he believes he managed to sleep with the aid of sedation.

Despite the best efforts of his doctors, Marc emerged paralyzed below a point under his armpits as a result of his fractured spine. He has the use of his hands, but small movements are difficult.

"I can't turn a screwdriver," he says. "I can't write."

After being discharged from St. Francis after three weeks, Marc spent two months in Gaylord Hospital in Wallingford, which specializes in rehabilitation.

Those were busy months for his family. Marc had been living with his father in Windsor Locks, and it took substantial rebuilding to make the house ready for his return.

"Not only do you bring him home, you have to figure out how," Mike Curto says.

The project involved such things as converting the living room and dining room into a bedroom and handicapped shower for Marc, his father says.

Even as that project was in progress, an even bigger project was taking shape — the construction of a handicapped accessible apartment attached to Marc's brother Vinnie's house in Agawam, Massachusetts.

The family got through those projects — and the rest of the vast life changes they had to face — with the help of an outpouring of generosity and support from their friends and community.

The East Granby deli where Marc works, The Kitchen, continued to pay his health insurance premiums while he was laid up after the crash, and numerous businesses and individuals contributed materials and labor to the apartment construction project, for which Vinnie says he acted essentially as general contractor.

To take just a few examples, "84 Lumber donated every stick of lumber that built this," Vinnie said during an interview in the apartment, which Marc moved into just two weeks ago. ABC Supply Co. donated roofing materials, and Fitzgerald Roofing donated the labor to install the roof, Vinnie says.

Division of labor

Marc's family has divided up the work of helping him, Vinnie says. For example, Marc's stepbrother, Joe Ribaudo, who works in direct-mail marketing, has taken on the job of marketing fundraising and other support efforts under the name "Curto's Crew."

Before the crash, Marc worked a lot at the deli and made good money. He has returned to work, but with sharply reduced hours and duties.

"I can only take orders and run the register," he says. "I can't make food. I can't do the work I've always done."

Marc continues to enjoy racing radio-controlled cars, and one of the acts of generosity he has encountered involves the hobby.

CHANGED LIFE

VICTIM: MARC CURTO, 47, WHO LIVED WITH HIS FATHER IN WINDSOR LOCKS IN SEPTEMBER 2020 WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED IN ENFIELD, AND NOW LIVES WITH HIS BROTHER IN AGAWAM, MASSACHUSETTS

MAIN INJURY: FRACTURED SPINE, CAUSING LOSS OF CONTROL OF HIS LOWER BODY AND IMPAIRED USE OF HIS HANDS

HOW TO HELP: VISIT HTTPS://MARCCURTO.ORG FOR THE LINK TO A GOFUNDME CAMPAIGN.

Within the last two months or so, RC Madness owner Chris Marcy installed a lift, with the help of a couple of Marc's friends, so Marc can get up as high as other drivers to see the track.

"It changed his whole demeanor," Marcy says of Marc.

But the outpouring of support from Marc's family and friends can only mitigate a terribly difficult life.

"I can still drive them," Marc says of RC cars. "I can't work on them and fix them. My friends help me a lot. I can't do it as well as I used to.

"Simple things tire me out," he adds.

New disabilities

"Every day, I find something new I can't do," he says. "If I'm in bed, and I need something to drink, I've got to call someone to get me something to drink. I was always the helper and not the helpee."

"I've had countless doctor's appointments, physical therapy appointments," he adds.

"I'm 47, and I've got the remainder of my life like this," he says.

Marc used to work out at a Hartford gym that was specially designed to meet the needs of handicapped people, Vinnie says, but it had to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which limited the number of people who could work out at one time.

"He was crushed," Vinnie says of his brother.

The financial and paperwork challenges that come with managing a disability are massive and Byzantine.

Mike Curto says the special wheelchair Marc uses to take showers cost $4,000. The motorized chair he uses most of the time costs about $30,000 new, but the family managed to get a refurbished one for $600.

Mike Curto also says Marc's health insurer canceled his policy as of the first of the year on grounds that the family had failed to fill out paperwork that Mike says never arrived.

Part of the reason Marc moved to Massachusetts is that he has a strong personal support network there, but it also partly had to do with better disability benefits, Vinnie says.

Not as much fun

There was a time when Marc would jump in a pool with his nieces and nephews in 40-degree weather, Vinnie says.

His days as the fun uncle aren't over, but they aren't the same either.

"My nephew said I was more fun before the accident," Marc says. "He didn't say it meanly."

"If it wasn't for my family, I wouldn't be here right now," Marc says. "I would have done something. But I couldn't do that to my family."

The driver of the truck that hit Marc's SUV, Alan F. Jackmauh, who is in his late 50s and has listed an address on Main Street in East Windsor, has pleaded no contest to first-degree assault and faces up to five years in prison. He is free on $100,000 bond while awaiting sentencing March 15 in Hartford Superior Court.

For updates on Glastonbury, and recent crime and courts coverage in North-Central Connecticut, follow Alex Wood on Twitter: @AlexWoodJI1, Facebook: Alex Wood, and Instagram: @AlexWoodJI.

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