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Hiwassee Dam
New York-born Joseph Timmerman knows pain, humility and patience after sustaining a fall while helping his best friend, Sharon, who lived on the opposite corner of the street. During the aftermath of a hurricane, he offered to help her with storm damage repair.
While up on and fixing Sharon’s roof so it wouldn’t leak, Timmerman failed to notice more than a foot of tin in one area had no support underneath it. The metal overhung the roof itself. While zipping everything down, and without having cut off the excess metal, he fell to the concrete below. Making it worse, on the way down from the roof, he hit his head on some 4x4s before landing.
Timmerman’s injuries were great. Sharon ran next door to inform his girlfriend, Pam. When Pam arrived,
she began cardio pulmonary resuscitation until paramedics arrived and took over. They were able to revive him and take him to a hospital, where his injuries included getting 19 staples in his head, bleeding in the brain, a broken sternum, six broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken collarbone and four fractured vertebrae in his back.
Timmerman was in the Intensive Care Unit for two weeks, not knowing if he would survive or walk again if he did. He spent six weeks in a hospital bed.
“When you’re in the ICU, when you don’t know if you’re ever going to walk again or whether you’re going to live or not, I had to fight for my life,” he said. “I just had to pull my head together and fight.”
After Timmerman was placed into a regular room from ICU, he couldn’t really move or get up and down on his own. He had to depend on the help of others for simple things, like going to the bathroom.
He stopped eating because he felt embarrassed when a nurse would have to help him with such basic functions. His doctor told him he needed to start.
“It was very humiliating,” Timmerman said.
His challenges included participating in rehabilitation, which was geared toward having him do everyday tasks such as bending down and picking up an item. He also had to re-learn how to walk.
The very things he didn’t want to do became the most important part of his rehab. He finds himself getting frustrated at people who do not want to do their rehab because it’s difficult.
Six months later, he was back at work and unafraid of climbing ladders or being on a roof. During his time spent recovering he was depressed but didn’t allow the feelings of wanting to give up take hold of his thinking.
“Damn it, I wanted to live,” Timmerman said with determination upon reflecting back. “I had to tell myself mentally to get all the crap thinking outta my head.”
What he realized after the accident was “I had a second chance at life. I go about every day life now and take any chance I see or get to help someone. I try to be kind to people I don’t even know. I live my life a little more gracious because of my second chance,” he said.
When he’s not on ladders or roofs with Timmerman’s Trimming Lawn & Landscaping, he enjoys working in his outdoor shop making wood shelves and signs.
Timmerman’s advice to others trying to get through the difficulties in the healing process is to “be strong, do your rehab and believe in yourself. Only you can decide to get better.”