Wreck sent man to nursing home

Feb. 26-- Feb. 26--Cornelia Gryder Cornell isn't sure if her husband, Louis, will ever recover from a wreck on Jan. 22 that sent both of them to the hospital.

Louis Cornell, 77, had health problems stemming from diabetes, but he was able to walk with a walker. Now he is bedridden and lives at Lenoir Healthcare Center, and Cornelia doesn't know if he ever will be able to come home.

"I am hopeful that it will turn around, but I don't know that it will. We just don't know at this point," she said Monday. "I'd like to think that he could at least get back to where he was prior to this accident, but I don't know that it's going to happen."

Cornelia, 79, and Louis were both taken to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte after a Toyota Camry driven by Christy Teague Baker, 43, of Claremont slammed head-on into their SUV at high speed on Connelly Springs Road just north of the Catawba River as Baker was fleeing from state troopers.

The accident broke Louis' sternum and caused injuries to his hands that are only now beginning to heal. It broke several bones in Cornelia's left foot.

Cornelia was discharged from the hospital Jan. 25, but Louis can't walk, so he was sent from the hospital to the nursing home on Jan. 30.

"He has not walked since the accident. In therapy they maybe had him walk 15 or 20 steps, and that was with the walker. I don't know what their plan is to try to get him on his feet," she said.

She and Louis have been together for 59 years and married for 56. He is originally from Boone and she is from Blowing Rock, but both have lived in Lenoir since before they married. Now, she often visits him, spending a couple hours at a time with him.

The stress of their separation is coupled with financial pressure from the medical bills accrued from the wreck, which are still coming in. Although they have health insurance, she doesn't know how much it will cover, and they are both retired -- she from Blue Ridge Energy and he from Dana Corp. in Morganton -- and they rely on Social Security to cover their daily expenses.

Cornelia said she received an ambulance bill from Burke County Emergency Medical Services for $1,401.70 for the trip to Carolinas Medical Center, and two ambulance bills from Caldwell County Emergency Medical Services for $634.20 each for the trip from the scene of the wreck to Valdese Hospital, where they initally were taken before being sent on to Charlotte.

"I'm a little bit bewildered by the Caldwell bills because we both went to Valdese Hospital in the same ambulance, but we received two bills," she said.

She hasn't yet received bills from the hospital or the nursing home.

"It is very stressful, just the not knowing, and wondering who's going to pay for his being in the nursing home, how much these bills are going to be, how much the insurance is going to pay and everything. It's very questionable all the way around," she said. "Automobile insurance will have to step in first before health insurance will."

She also wonders if she will ever again enjoy the daily companionship she had with Louis.

"It's very sad, and I know I can go to him, but things are just not the same," she said. "They will never be the same."

Reporter Kara Fohner can be reached at 828-610-8721.

___

(c)2019 the News-Topic (Lenoir, N.C.)

Visit the News-Topic (Lenoir, N.C.) at http://www.newstopic.net/

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.