Rogers City family ?thankful? for fire victim Bob Shorkey?s recovery

by Peter Jakey Managing Editor—- Thankful for another day. Another Thanksgiving holiday. Another wedding anniversary. Another hunting season.

Those are some of the blessings Bob Shorkey of Rogers City is counting this month, a little more than a year after a fire accident left him fighting for his life in a Flint hospital. Shorkey, who worked as a paramedic for more than 30 years in Rogers City, unexpectedly found himself in desperate need of medical attention November 2, 2005, when the John Deere tractor he was cleaning leaves with slipped on a soft bank and tipped over at the UAW Center near Black Lake, spilling gasoline on him in a fully enclosed cab. Fire ignited immediately. Bob does not remember anything after that.

BACK IN Rogers City, his wife Pat, received a telephone call that there was an accident involving her husband, and that she needed to have someone drive her to the Center, but she also heard on the scanner that there was a ?man on fire and that they could not get him out.? Pat knew it was her husband. Bob got himself out by kicking the front window out, or by using his shoulder to push it out. He is not completely sure how he got out. Shorkey received severe burns and was expected to lose eyesight in one eye, as well as some hearing. He was airlifted from Cheboygan to Flint, but the outlook was not good.

Shorkey spent the next three weeks, most of last November, in a coma at Hurley Medical Center. During that time his breathing had to be restored twice and he had to fight through a bout of pneumonia. Being the wife of a paramedic, Pat knew what her husband was up against. ?I was told that once you get pneumonia, it?s all over. You are not coming back.? Bob proved those words to be wrong, waking up from the coma and eventually getting released from the hospital.

EVEN ON Thanksgiving Day 2005, when much of the staff was off, he told his daughter Christine that — whatever it took — he wanted to get out of bed and walk. ?I was not staying there any longer,? said Shorkey. More than a half dozen surgeries later, and another in a few weeks, one could not tell he was in an accident. A closer look at his right arm reveals significant scarring. He continues rehabilitation work in Alpena to try and strengthen and regain control in his right hand.

The injuries still have kept him from returning to work or rejoining the Rogers City Fire Department. Bob said it was frustrating not being able to assist with The Advance fire of February 12. ?It killed me,? said Bob.

Pat added, ?I had to take him out of town because he wanted so bad to do anything, even if it was to stand outside and direct traffic. He could not even do that, because he cannot stand out in the cold.?

FROM PARAMEDIC Don Grainger?s assistance at the scene to the staff at Cheboygan Memorial Hospital, as well as a doctor in Flint who delayed a trip to Iraq to make sure Bob was able to pull through, there is a lot for the Shorkey family

to be thankful for. ?I am definitely thankful that I still have him, and I am definitely thankful that I will have my whole family together to enjoy a Thanksgiving home, because let me tell you that thanksgiving dinner we had in the hospital was horrid,? said pat Shorkey. They also were able to spend their wedding anniversary together on November 12. It was in a Flint hospital for an appointment, but Bob was a awake this year.

?I am thankful for a lot,? said Pat Shorkey. For the firearm opener, Bob was able to return to the woods with his daughter Christine, who is thankful to have her hunting partner back.

?It definitely has brought our family closer together,? said Pat Shorkey. ?We were close before, but this really has brought us closer. We know that when you almost lose a family member, you take each day and cherish every minute.?