Part Three - Going Home

Ryan Nagy told his wife, Barb, that being a cripple was too hard. He wanted to die.

He doesn't feel that way any more. He has too much to live for -- spending time with Barb and raising their two children, Zachary, 3, and Emma, 2. Ryan doesn't blame Barb for making the decision she had to make to have his leg cut off. If Barb had been in an accident and he had to make the choice between saving her life or her limb, he would choose her life.

"Not even a question in my mind," Ryan said.

Ryan is going home today

As he ate a vanilla cupcake, his wife took down personal photographs taped to his hospital wall and loaded clear plastic bags with the extra blankets and clothing she had brought from home 56 days ago.

The Middleburg Heights patrolman is taking everything home. On April 11, he was brought to MetroHealth Medical Center after being hit from behind by a pickup truck while making a routine traffic stop on Interstate 71. To save his life, doctors amputated his right leg. Barb gave them permission to do it.

"Fifty-six days, Ry," Barb said, smiling. Of those days, Ryan remembers only the past 14.

Doesn't matter. Today, Ryan's going home.

"Graduation day," one of his doctors called it.

Because he's going home, the hospital held a news conference. Before it, Ryan said he wasn't comfortable with the attention or being in the spotlight. He can't understand why so many are so interested in him.

"I was just doing my job," Ryan said. At the news conference, Barb thanked the doctors, nurses and therapists for helping to bring Ryan back. She thanked the community for its support. She thanked the paramedics for bringing him to Metro.

"I can't imagine how hard it was to work on your friend," Barb said to the paramedics.

The television crews asked them to pretend they were leaving the hospital. Ryan and Barb both think that's silly. They do it but quickly turn around.

"I want to get out of here for real," Ryan said, heading to his hospital room. Barb hopes the television cameras leave them alone now.

Ryan said leaving the hospital is bittersweet. He is so grateful. The staff here saved his life.

He wants to go home but admits he's anxious. For now, he will sleep in a rented hospital bed in the dining room. Barb will sleep on the floor beside him. They're trying to figure out how Ryan can take a shower. It's on the second floor and his left leg isn't yet strong enough for him to push himself upstairs backward on his butt.

Buddies are talking about hooking a portable shower up in the garage, since there's hot and cold spigots out there.

The dilemma of getting him into the tiny powder room on the first floor has been solved. Family members and friends reconfigured a mechanic's chair.

"They pimped your ride," Barb teased Ryan.

Every countertop in their home is covered with cardboard boxes, overstuffed with cards sent from well-wishers over the past month and a half. There's also a bucket of coins and a Ziploc bag filled with silver dollars, collected by local elementary school children. Barb said it will be impossible for her to cash in these. Whenever she imagines the children holding bake sales and collecting coins for her husband, she gets emotional.

The doctors advised Barb not to leave Ryan alone for more than an hour or two at first. But she has to get back to work. Middleburg Heights police officers and firefighters will take turns looking after Ryan when she is working. Ryan will have to go back to Metro three times a week for rehabilitation.

His police and fire buddies built handicap ramps and moved furniture so Ryan can move around easier. The couch - too soft for him to be comfortable - has been fitted with a plywood board, so he can snuggle with his kids and watch videos with them. He can't wait to play with them on the swing set he started the day before the accident and that his fellow officers finished while he was in the hospital.

His kids are no longer afraid of him, as they were when first seeing him after the accident.

Before Ryan can leave, the nurse must go through his list of medications with Barb. She has been taught to change the dressing on his amputated leg and how to give him twice-daily shots.

A doctor stops to say goodbye, showing him the small pin on her lapel. It's a miniature version of Ryan's badge his buddies distributed a few days after the accident. She promised to wear it until he goes back to work.

When the therapist goes over the exercises he has to practice at home, Ryan listens closely. He knows the speed and the success of his recovery is up to him. His long-term goal: He wants to go back to work. He wants to wear his Middleburg Heights police uniform with badge No. 707 pinned to its lapel. He still wants to be on the SWAT team.

"Not just as a sharpshooter but as one of the guys breaking down the door," Ryan said.

No desk job. Ryan has heard about soldiers with prosthetics jumping out of airplanes.

"If they can do it, so can I," he said. His police chief and the mayor have said there will be a place for Ryan.

First things first, though. Doctors told Ryan it's going to take another month for the wounds on his stump to heal. Until then, he can't be fitted for a prosthetic limb. He also has to build up the strength in his good leg.

In six months, Ryan's friends are getting married. He doesn't want to roll down the aisle ahead of them. Walk. He asked the doctor if that's possible.

"The doctor looked at me and told me, 'I guarantee you will walk down the aisle,' " Ryan said. "So that's my thing. I've got six months."

Ryan still has "bad days." Barb figured those days are linked to how much pain he's feeling. He tends to become fixated - the bandage on his stump, the nurses not responding quickly enough.

Some nights, he has trouble sleeping, wracked with "what if's:"

What if I hadn't signed up for that overtime shift? What if I had taken longer to eat lunch that day?

Ryan thinks that if his friend, a motorcycle cop, had worked for him that day, he never would have survived the impact of the pickup. Ryan's cruiser took the bulk of the truck's impact. This was meant to be, Ryan said. Ryan is glad he took the hit rather than his friend.

Barb has new worries. Last week, she was walking beside Ryan as he negotiated his wheelchair from Metro's main building to the rehabilitation wing, across the street. Ryan was in a good mood. As they made their way, a man with matted hair, wearing disheveled clothing, approached.

"Hey, man," the stranger taunted. "Why dontcha get out of that chair and walk? Let me sit there and have that pretty little thing pushing you, push me instead."

"That's not funny," Ryan responded.

"Come on, I'm just joking with ya."

"Leave us alone," Barb demanded. But the man wouldn't. He followed, making lewd comments at Barb. Barb pushed Ryan faster. Once inside, Barb was shaking. Ryan was angry that the man had made fun of his physical condition.

"Can you believe that guy?" he asked. Barb was upset for another reason. This was the first time since she started dating Ryan that she felt physically unsafe.

He can't protect me any more, she thought.

As the nurses took turns hugging Ryan and Barb goodbye, Barb glanced at the clock: 12:15. She had better hurry.

There's a big surprise waiting for Ryan. As they wait for the elevator, Ryan took one last look at the brain-injury rehab floor. His eyes filled with tears.

Barb grabbed his hand and whispered, "It's OK, Ry."

Once out of the elevator on the bottom floor, Barb slowly pushed Ryan toward the door that is blocked with people. Lots of people. Ryan looked confused. Police officers. He knew most of them. What are they doing here?

They all started clapping. Loud. Louder. Ryan put his hand over his mouth, stunned. Lining the hall, reaching out their hands to touch him, are more than a hundred officers, many with tears in their eyes. They're here to give Ryan an "official send-off." These men and women felt this accident. They know it could have been them.

Once outside, many hugged Ryan. More police - on- and off-duty - continued to arrive. Ryan is speechless. He is surrounded by blue uniforms.

Buddies helped Ryan into his van. His wife headed south onto I-71 - past the site where the accident happened a month and a half ago. Ryan is thankful she chose to save his life over his limb.

Ryan is going home.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

dkeough@plaind.com, 216-999-4927

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