His hospital room is big and there’s a vacant bed nearby. There are gifts, balloons, a six-pack of Diet Coke, cards from well-wishers scattered wherever staff can find a perch to display.
The air is warm, the feeling inside is cozy, but when visitors leave and his two-hour-a-day physical therapist’s session is done, the TV fills the void until it doesn’t. Then, one can imagine the silence is deafening.
Former BYU, SUU, and NBA coach Roger Reid is recovering, but it will be a long, slow process. This is not the spring and summer he imagined in the twilight of his life.
He might as well be chained to his bed. His green gown covers legs that have been beaten, broken and bruised. His arms are wrapped and basically all but immobile. His face has stubble from unshaved days strung together, like a hunter on safari. The thing is, it would be a major event to get a shave because someone else would have to operate the razor.
Same with every other routine part of living, from feeding to brushing his teeth and beyond.
Reid is staying in an American Fork recovery center following multiple injuries suffered when he was run over by a golf cart in Nephi more than two weeks ago. He has undergone three surgeries and has multiple plates and screws in his arms and legs. He broke his left leg (tibia and fibula), his left elbow, right shoulder, six ribs and had multiple contusions and cuts.
The accident occurred near the No. 6 hole. His wife Diane, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, was driving the cart, but was unaware of what was happening when she pressed her foot on the accelerator and took to the wheel, circling the green before the cart came at her husband.
“I thought I could stop it and worried she would fall out,” said Roger. “The cart was going full speed. The next thing I knew I was on the ground, the cart was on top of me, my face was in a sand trap and the cart wheels were spinning. I could see the legs of people. They got the cart off me. I remember an ambulance and a helicopter and that’s it.”
Roger said his wife is unaware of what happened. He regularly took her golfing and out of the house as her primary provider during her struggles with Alzheimer’s. She is now in a memory help center in Payson, away from her husband for the first time in their lives.
For almost half a decade, Roger has been her care provider, a love story that has taken a tragic twist.
Reid has been buoyed up by visits from friends and family. A train of former players, including Shawn Bradley, now in Dallas, Michael Smith, and others have come by to see him or call.
“That means a lot to me,” said Reid.
At present, his existence is dependent on others. He can move his left hand but is restricted in motion. His right arm is restricted to just a few degrees of lift. He can’t answer his phone so he has to just let it ring.
It’s humbling for a 78-year-old man used to being active and independent his entire ...
