Californians to arrive for game
'hun 1 75 Cj!i?omi jus fot N; tjr jska w!N j:mv.: i;i L:r
.jt 10:45 a.m. Thursday for tf i-.-ir annua! visit to U' JL ar.
J tin; Nebiasl- a-Colorado football game,
'f-l'v-r Mdasdam of Burtnk, Caid., is coot '.iinjtiirj tin.
ji'j-nnj trip this year. Headquai ters for the CJifoimar.s
Nebraska will bj the Villager Motel.
Then; will be a Mecial tour of the Lincoln campuses and
State Canitol Building for the group Friday morning folio.-.1
,j i'j'icbaon :n the Nebraska Union and attendance at
Cornhur.!:or freshman football game.
A social hour will be held at the Villager ut 5:30 p.m. Pi
and at 5 p.m. Saturday following the footlx.ll game. A s;
dim, -r for the Californians will Ik? held at 7 p.m. Saturday'.
:o;o
I to
NU
for
"he Californians
(iepart from Lincoln airport at 11
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Sun iay.
World Campus Afloat: Join Us!
Sails each September & February.
T 'us is te- )ou-.- a'v.a.s ' v-.ted
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I X- " ' v ',1 WCA. Chapman College
lV3r J . . ' tA.J Box 1000. Orange. CA 9266S
MODEL
UNITED NATION'S
CONFERENCE
I I I KM IV ..I l UK SK
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Arlo Guthrie
IN CONCERT
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SATURDAY, NOV. 3, 3 P.M. ; jj
-DOORS (JPEN 7PM-
PERSHING AUDiTORIUM-uNcoi rj I
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Accidents...
Continued from page 1
The others seem more comfortable with the
past. They feel lucky it wasn't worse, lucky to
be alive at all. But they drove again, and kept
di iving until their fear was gone.
Mark Boyle probably is somewhere in
between. A year of convalescence and
near-isolation that goes with a painful and
cumbersome leg brace is not easy for a man
who said he'd never keep "just one fish, or just'
one pet of any kind," believing they, too, need
com pany.
Mark was 24 last June 15. That means few
of his school friends are still in Omaha.
Hobbies have been necessarily scaled down
or eliminated, he said. He used to paint a lot. In
fact, once he's healthier again, he may go back
to school and study art.
He has a good Pentax camera-Army PXs
are one blessing of the service, he said. He and
some friends used to laze across Texas deserts,
taking colored photos of wiggly wildlife and
twisted growths of cacti.
He has little chance to practice photography
now. Walking the length of his residential block
is an effort.
He invented midnight football games in
Okinawa and nights were never the same. That,
too, is out now.
Mark will walk unaided again, maybe in six
months doctors tell him. He had three
compound fractures in the thigh and shin on
his right k"j.
It took three hours to set the breaks the
;(ht of ihf jeeident, he said. To get to them,
i!-" doctors had to destroy his embroidered
jvM.is and his cowboy boots, his first two
pin eh., ses after he returned from overseas.
H.. f.at in ti action it the Universtiy Hospital
uiuil Chi istmas. The doctors then released him
wish ; est brace on his leg. But in March, they
found bones were not healing, so they put
him in a east from the middle of his chest to his
tries, he said.
The cast came off in May and he now wears
i log bi jce and walks with crutches.
"It has been a lesson in patience and
endurance," Mark said.
Had it not been for the accident, Mark
would be in art school, or on Monterey Beach,
he said. He remembers especially loving that
part of California, where he began his 47-week
Chinese course in October 1969.
He feels a bit out of place, still living in his
paionis' home, he said. He watches TVKung
l:u, the- Waltons, the Untouchables.
"And I think about the world and all kinds
of stuff," he said.
Maik has teturned to Catholicism since last
October. He was raised a Catholic, but had let it
slide in college and the service.
"The thought always comes back to me now
that I could have died in that thing. It taught
rne death is something that can come to me
anytime. And I have a whole mess of stuff I still
luive to do," he said.
He can't drive now because of the brace. Is
he afraid of cai s?
"I like to think not, but I am," he said.
M,n k ,md the others are only a small part of
the October casualties. October, December and
January arc; the months with the highest
a'ciden' rates, according to figures from the
Ni'bra-I' 1 Department of Roads. Wet or icy
loan'., account lor the maiginal accidents, they
s,iy.
Liy far the greatest cause of automobile
accidents is "driver behavior"-drinking,
inattention, needless risk-taking, etc.
,V ths per miles traveled in Nebraska are
holdn ste.idy ovei the past 20 years at alxiut
five be,,ths per 100 million vehicle miles
trav 'led, staled lecnids show.
But casualties are becoming an increasingly
l.nge portion of the "societal cost" statistic,
c. -iking up more than GO per cent of the total
calculated loss from vehicle accidents.
Leo Sierks, the elderly man whose car
struck a viaduct tailing in F remont, has been a
casualty more than once.
He said he gave up driving after the last one
lieeause he and his children decided it was the
sensible thing to do. But it has left him no more
seated of vehicle accidents than any of its
predecessors.
"I've been pretty lucky with my accidents,"
fie begins.
In about 1922, the steel-rimmed wheels of a
horse-drawn wagon full of shelled corn broke
his right collar ixjne and shattered part of his
right hip.
Sierks had been in another accident almost a
year to the (Jay Udorc the final one. He was
trying to drive home from work when a car
struck his rear bumper, jolting it a bit
He has resolved himself to tx.'ing car-less, he
said.
"Sometimes I don't like it. Still, I say, I'm
satisfied."
He now has to walk to Eagles dancei Friday
nights. That and the problem with his girlfriend
are his only complaints about the accident. He
still considers himself lucky.
Luck is something the Ottos in Lindsay
seem a little short on. But they're long on faith
and optimism.
Their accident only prolonged the havoc
that a year of hospitalization for Mrs. Otto had
brought the family. She'd had cancer which
spread throughout most of her body, and now
considers herself recovered.
"312 is my room," she said of the Our Lady
of Lourdes Catholic hospital in Norfolk. She
kidded the nurses that she didn't like the
room's yellow color. It has been painted green.
She, her husband, and the five children were
taken to Our Lady of Lourdes after the
accident. Everyone but her stayed about a
week. Mrs. Otto was in two months.
Religion has pulled them through, they said.
"The cancer, the accident, really makes you
think," Mrs. Otto said.
Her parents have moved in with, them in
their large, two-story white house. They've kept
the house and the children together, she said.
And neighbors and congregation members
have supplied food and help throughout it all.
"Wow, at Christmas, you wouldn't have
believed the cookies," Mrs. Otto said.
But a large part seems to have been the
Ottos' fun-loving optimism.
Otto's left knee cap was cracked, oo he
walked with a cane until Thanksgiving day. He's
an engineer with Lindsay Manufacturing, but
until recently he was night manager of the
irrigation equipment factory. That meant lots
of walking at work, which saved his knee from
stiffening permanently, he said.
With a weak left leg, he couldn't pump his
bass drum. That meant not playing with his
Jimmy Hoff country-western band. He went
without until he just couldn't any more-at a
Christmas party among friends.
"I had to straddle the seat sideways, and
play the bass with my right foot. I only lasted
one song but it felt great," he said.
Of course, they'd learned long ago how to
make fun in a hospital. Like New Year's Eve,
1971.
Mrs. Otto was a cancer patient, but for some
reason was put in a maternity ward. She and
another woman decided their husbands should
celebrate the new year with their wives. There
was a third woman in the ward.
"She'd just delivered that morning, but we
talked her into it," Mrs. Otto said.
The children were good from the beginning,
Mrs. Otto said. Ronda, 12, suffered a broken
nose from the accident. Debra, 11, had just a
cut below her right eye. Jerry, 10, had a cut
along the side of his left arm. Lori, 8, and Julie,
4, had broken noses, and a broken leg and ribs.
They visited their mother often, she said.
Julie's injuries were hard on her for awhile. The
neighbor children tired of visiting her because
she couldn't play. So the first thing she did
after the cast was off her leg was to round up
her old friends and rejoin the activities,
Mr. Otto said he began driving again right
away. He is a member of the Lindsay volunteer
rescue squad, so he has seen accidents before.
That is why, before he even realized his knee
was hurt, he tore the back seat from their
wrecked car and laid the children on its
cushions, and checked the bleeding rip in Mrs.
Otto's forehead.
Things are still unsettled. Mrs. Otto's jaw
was cracked in the accident, her teeth are still
loose and she has been delaying the necessary
dental visit. She's not sure the health insurance
will cover it.
Mrs. Otto was shaken by the accident for a
long time. But her husband would not stand for
it.
"He made me drive before I could even
walk. For the longest time, when I'd meet a car,
I'd tend to go into the ditch," she said.
And he did the same with her walking. Her
leg ached when she tried to use it, especially on
steps, so she clung to the crutches until her
husband took them away.
"I was real leery, but now I've rlone it. And
now he (Mr. Otto) and the doctor scold me and
say I'm limping. I tell them, 'At least I'm
walking.'
"It's quite a thing for me. I'm sure everyone
understands what I mean."
The Nebraska State Patrol is trying to teach
everyone what she means through eight-hour
defensive driving courses throughout the state,
Lt. Robert Buchholz said.
He teaches people to drive attentively,
observing weather conditions or any conditions
that may affect safety, he said.
"We just hope it soaks in," he said.
But haven't they been teaching defensive
driving for a long time?
Yes, he said.
And accidents have continued at a steady
rate? 1
Yes.
Then what does it take to make it soak in?
I guess I don't know."
pu'jo 10
doily rubreiskun
Wednesday, October 31, 1973
