Mission Under Fire (11 page)

~•••~

A
s much as I enjoy the excitement of a party, I wasn’t looking forward to answering questions, or dealing with cameras in my face. I wanted to get home. I wanted to hold Sharon. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. All the childish excitement I had moments earlier melted as I looked down at the crowd below. Was Sharon there? Could she sense how strongly I was thinking about her? Would I find her right away?

I could only hope. 

We descended.

I thought of Sharon.

The breaks squealed.

I pictured her sweet smile.

The aircraft stopped and we all began to experience heightened emotions. I could see it in the eyes of the other team members. I could feel it in my chest and throat. We wanted to see our families so badly. Of all the traveling I’d done over the years I never looked forward to landing like I did that night.

The others would walk out first because I had decided to sit on the stool for the remainder of the trip, making me the last to leave. A wave of joy ran through my body as I unbuckled and sat up, preparing to exit.

The moment the door opened and the stairway unfolded, our much-needed calm came to a crashing halt. Caring family members and friends had stepped outside into the cold, waiting anxiously to see their loved ones, hoping to confirm that they were safe and well. Reporters stood by equally anxious, setting up their cameras, hoping to get a good “shot” of the plane and the passengers as they returned. The reporters looked as if they wanted to eat our flesh, they were that hungry to hear our story.

Days later, I was informed that the media had been harassing families all day, probing for details, reporting that their hearts and prayers were with the families involved. Yet, when they had arrived at the Kokomo airport, they worked their way into the crowd, without a word to the families because the most important thing was getting a good shot, and the juicy details.

Well they got their story. Lights shone and cameras rolled. They recorded our every move, but I only had one thought on my mind.

Sharon.

I stepped out of the airplane wearing a pair of cargo shorts and a golfing shirt. The wind whipped into the cabin and a chill swept over my body. But this wasn’t just the kind of chill that you get from a cool breeze. I began shaking, shivering cold from a combination of temperature shock, and the overwhelming emotions that flooded my mind. When I looked out into the crowd, I saw Sharon standing with Amber and Mandy, patiently waiting for me to limp out of the plane. Their faces never looked so beautiful to me. My emotions stirred and I hobbled down the steps as quickly as I could. My girls grabbed me first and covered me with a blanket that they had borrowed from somebody. Sharon threw her arms around me and we started for our car.

The last thing I wanted was to stay for the media blitzkrieg. 

Mandy walked with Sharon and me, and Amber left us briefly to retrieve my luggage. While she traversed the tarmac, Amber had to fight her way through the crowd of reporters and cold to grab my luggage.

Shrouded by the November chill and the airport lights, Sharon, Mandy and I headed for the car. I climbed inside intending to sit down carefully, but I ended up collapsing into the passenger seat. When I hit the cushion, my tough guy, comedian persona finally broke down. I don’t fully understand it, but underneath the jokes and teasing that went on during our hospital stay and our dinner in Fort Lauderdale, I had unknowingly carried deep-seated emotions. But when Sharon sat down in the driver’s seat, my outer shell finally cracked, and my concrete emotions burst open. I had rallied all the courage and strength I could find during the shooting. I’d held it together as best I could. It was tough. It was necessary. I made everyone laugh when we were in the hospital. I did the best I could to be manly, to be productive—to do more than eat, sleep and shit.

Through it all, I kept my feelings in check. But when I realized that I was safe with my wife and daughters, I totally lost it. I buried my head in my Sharon’s arms and began to wail uncontrollably.

It felt good to cry.

I completely let go.

Sharon held me close, and even though she didn’t understand what I’d been through, she knew my heart, and she knew I was in bad shape. I needed her so desperately. So finally, I let go of everything that had knotted up in side of me. I could feel her care and love through her gentle touch. I’ve never been ashamed of showing emotion, but I don’t remember breaking down like that in front of my wife or children. To this day, I have trouble remembering how loud I cried, but Mandy, who was sitting in the back seat at the time, describes it as a blood-curdling scream, one that could drive you to tears just listening to her imitate what she heard. Needless to say, that moment was a homecoming I’ll never forget.

~•••~

A
mber returned just after my emotional episode. She could tell something had happened while she was gone. She looked to Mandy for an explanation, but her sister was hesitant to explain what had occurred until a more appropriate time. All she could say was, “Something... just... happened.”

As we drove away, I realized that for the first time in nearly a week I had separated from my team. It felt strange to be apart at first, but I was with my family and that’s what I needed most. Sharon and the girls, however, insisted that we go straight to the emergency room to ensure that my wounds were properly cared for.

We pulled into the emergency ramp and parked directly outside the main doors. The hospital staff was expecting us, waiting with a wheel chair. Unlike the expedited treatment I received in Haiti, however, I was quickly reminded that I had returned to the United States. The numerous forms I filled out and many questions I had to answer seemed ridiculous. In Haiti, the doctors simply made the fix, and the treatment was over. Here the red tape was cumbersome. I understand the system, but after hanging on with so little sleep I was completely exhausted. The last thing I needed was to spend the night filling out medical questionnaires.

Fortunately, the attending nurse happened to be Jaime Verlee, a member of our church. I’ve performed several times with her husband Sean, so I was comfortable working with her. As much as I didn’t want to be in another hospital, it was good to see familiar faces. When the desk nurse asked about a tetanus shot and other surgeries I may have had, I replied in my usual way and said, “You mean other than the sex change?” I laughed and Jaime said I was her new favorite patient. But the desk nurse wasn’t amused, and I doubt that Sharon was either.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my daughters say that once we were in the examination room, I talked and talked and talked. Amber, who graduated from Indiana University with a degree in psychology, had told Mandy and Sharon not to ask too many questions, and that it was best to let me open up on my own terms. So after I released my emotions at the airport, I guess I felt free to talk. It was the first time Sharon and the girls heard any significant details about the event.

While in the examination room, I answered more questions about the shooting and the medical procedures in Haiti. To everyone’s relief, the Haitian doctors had done a fine job. The only thing the doctor said I could’ve done differently was to not walk on my bad leg. The doctor gave me a prescription for the pain and said that I should use crutches for at least two weeks. 

The other doctor present, Dr. Martha Hoshaw MD, a general practitioner who attends our church, affirmed that being shot doesn’t define who I am. She was correct, except it did define who I was for the next six months. Although my injuries could’ve been much worse, I had a long road of healing ahead of me.

On our way home, we picked up gauze, tape, my prescription, and antiseptic cream. Over the next couple of months I changed my dressings almost two hundred times. It took eight months for my wound to heal, and to this day my leg has a quarter size scar. When I rub the top of my thigh, I feel the missing muscle tissue below the skin. It’s a very strange sensation.

Unfortunately, when my wound had finally scabbed over, I went on a service call that required me to go into a crawlspace. Once my upper body had cleared the opening, I pulled my legs in, scraping off the precious scab that had grown. That was such a disappointment. I had to start all over again.

My leg has since recovered, but I’ll always have the scar, and I’ll always have my story.

T
he next morning I started receiving phone calls, from family and friends. We found a pair of crutches and I began the task of learning how to walk without falling on my face. The main chore during the weeks that followed was changing the dressings. Yet as much as I pampered my wounds, I continued to feel the pinching pliers on the back of my leg.

One day I asked Sharon for a mirror so I could see what was causing so much pain. And there it was—The Brad Downing Bruise. This was no ordinary contusion; Brad had gripped me so fiercely that the mark practically covered the back of my leg. The discoloration was approximately the shape of an oversized eggplant.

As the weeks progressed, more and more folks came to visit, call or pray, and I started getting calls from the media. One of our local radio stations contacted me. This particular radio station, WWKI 100.5 FM, has a call-in program every morning around 9:00 am aptly titled,
Male Call
, because the founders of the program, Dick Bronson and Charlie Cropper now diseased, were both males. The station representative asked if some of the other survivors and I would come and share our account of what happened. They promised to give us the full hour to share the miracles that we’d experienced, so naturally we agreed.

I showed up for the live broadcast staggering in with my crutches. Monty also made an appearance. And Morgan, looking quite dapper, limped along with his spiffy cane. This was the first of many opportunities I’ve had to share our story. Everyone on the team has a different realm of influence, so we’d go wherever an opportunity presented itself.

Talking about the experience is one of many ways I have learned to cope with the trauma. We met as a group with Dr. Scott Edwards, a professional psychologist and friend. Our team had a lot of healing ahead of us, some more than others, but I had no idea how this event would impact my life. I was in for a shock.

~•••~

A
lthough I experienced an occasional celebrity moment, there was a dark side to all of this. I frequently had nightmares and flashbacks. Within days after we returned, I realized I didn’t like to go to sleep at night. For the next three weeks I’d wake up in cold sweats, sometimes screaming from my nightmares. I didn’t always dream about the shooting, but rather parts and pieces managed to find their way into my head.

While we were in Haiti, a group of children were chasing something along a small wastewater trench. They giggled and carried on like normal kids, just having a blast. But then they suddenly flipped a snake out of the water and peppered it with stones. They rejoiced, cheering in victory over their kill.

One of my nightmares incorporated that story, waking me in a cold sweat. In the dream, a gunman chased me through the Double Harvest courtyard and I came across a large moat like the wastewater trenches the children played in. The mote was filled with snakes, crawling on top of each other, freaking me out. Soon hundreds of snakes were slithering all over me and I woke up screaming.

I remember Sharon yelling, “They’re gone. They’re all gone.” She didn’t know what I had envisioned; she just figured I was dreaming about the gunmen, or something related to the Haiti trip. The shooters were incorporated in my dreams early on, but the worst part was the snakes. I detest them. And I imagine the trauma resulting from the shooting, punctuated by my fear of serpents, was my brain’s way of helping me sort it all out.

On another occasion, I dreamed that I was running from the gunmen, bullets flying past me with the pop, pop, pop still echoing in my ears. They chased me into a large ditch filled with water and snakes like the ones in my previous dream. When I woke up I was exhausted as if it had really happened.

Dreams like these were very normal in the weeks to come. There are 17 symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and I experienced at least 4 of those: frequent upsetting thoughts or memories, recurring nightmares, physical responses to reminders of the shooting (increase in heart rate/sweating), difficulty remembering details. Like some of the other survivors, my mind wasn’t only dealing with the trauma at night. I found myself reliving every moment of the shooting throughout the day as well. Each time I’d think about what happened, I’d reconfigure the outcome and imagine what I should have done.

During the day, I’d ask plenty of questions. I’d ask myself,
Why we didn’t all go out on the veranda and escape? Why didn’t the gunmen come through the other door? Why hadn’t I done this or that?
And the questions went on and on.

Although I was fully cognizant that I had survived, I’d picture myself dying in Haiti and taking in all the ramifications that’d come with my death. I wondered if Chad would give my grandsons some of my music equipment if I had died. I wondered what Sharon would do with the business? Would she sell it, or would Amber and Chad take it over? I pondered how long it would take before someone is totally forgotten about after they die. Six months? A year? Five years? Are they only remembered during holidays or birthdays? Sometimes I think of my dad, but I only think of him when I accomplish something special, hoping that he’d be proud of me. I figure my kids would laugh about the things I’d say. Fortunately, those were only thoughts, and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with those issues yet.

~•••~

E
xactly a week after the shooting, we celebrated Thanksgiving at Amber and Jeff’s house. I was still sore and needed crutches to move around. I decided to rest on their couch in the living room and hold my newest grandson, Cash. The other adults were in the kitchen and dining room getting the food ready. As I sat there resting my leg and enjoying the baby, my grandsons, Levi and Asher, popped in the video game
Call of Duty
, a very life-like war game. The game started so quickly, I didn’t have time to even consider how my mind and body would respond. The boys were having a good old time clueless of the anxiety that had come over me. I had no way of moving myself off of the couch. Luckily, in that moment, Amber walked in the room and saw what was happening.