Hincka family thankful for dad’s recovery from blow

by Peter Jakey– Managing Editor

Todd Hincka of Rogers City suffered about as severe a head injury a person can receive without any lingering physical or mental impairments. Last December, Hincka was struck in the front part of his head by an errant section of thick chain that had snapped loose from the back bumper of a semi tractor that had sunk in the mud on a late fall day.

It flew directly through the window of the enclosed cab of the heavy equipment Hincka was operating causing a severe head injury.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, incidence rates in the logging industry are far above other industries, including construction, mining and manufacturing. Hincka works with his brothers and nephew, and while there have been inherent mishaps in the field, nothing of this magnitude has ever taken place in their tight family circle. It was the roughest December Todd, his wife Liz, and their four children have ever experienced.

Wrong place at the wrong time The ground was covered with snow and the sun was shining that Tuesday. The Hincka?s, who log from Sault Ste. Marie to Manistee, oftentimes work in different groups. On December 4, 2007, Todd and Eric were along Cheboygan County?s Osmond Road between Afton and Indian River.

Eric said he and his brother were laughing and pretty much enjoyed going to work that day.

It was late in the fall and the ground hadn?t come close to freezing. The ground was really soft, which is probably why the semi truck loaded with wood got stuck along the side of the road.

It was nothing out of the ordinary, it had happened many times over the years. ?We couldn?t move the semi forward, so we decided to pull it back a little to get a rocking motion going,? said Eric Hincka. ?The only difference this time was we had a towrope.? A chain was on the semi and the skidder, with a towrope in the middle. Todd gave it a couple of test tries. One of the attempts stalled the skidder Todd was operating. He gave the chain an extra jerk and a link close to the hook on the semi side snapped.

?When it did break, everything was headed toward Todd,? said Eric. ?He was a little lower than the truck, because he was down in a dip. It was as straight as can be.? ?It was sudden, too,? said Todd, picking up the story. ?I heard, ?boom,? and that was it. My eyesight went. It hit my optical nerve, so I couldn?t see after that.? Newer skidders have bars around the cab, but the one Todd and Eric use is older and was only enclosed by safety glass. It wasn?t enough to prevent the fast moving chain. It hit him above his right eye around the hairline and created an ?S? like wound. ?I could feel blood running down, so I put my hand up there, and it actually was squirting out of my head. I wanted to get the heck out of the skidder.?

?When the chain hit,? said Eric, ?I didn?t think anything of it. When I looked back Todd was leaning back and I could see he was hit and that the window was broke.? Eric tried calling 9-1-1, but the reception was bad.

?Finally I got through, and the voice I heard on the other end is Randy Idalski,? said Eric of the familiar Posen voice. Idalski is a dispatcher with the Presque Isle County Sheriff?s Department. ?Randy cooled me down. He hooked me into Cheboygan County.? The ambulance arrived in about 24 minutes, said Eric.

?It seemed like it took them forever,? said Todd, sipping coffee in his kitchen last Saturday. ?It seemed like 10 hours to me. I felt dizzy and nauseous.? Emergency personnel determined Todd had suffered a depressed skull fracture and the best neuro-treatment would be found in Petoskey, even though Cheboygan Memorial Hospital was closer.

A healing silence Liz works for the Department of Human Services in Presque Isle and Alpena County?s and was seeing clients. When she got into the office in Alpena, her workmates told her family was trying to contact her.

Liz called Tammy Hincka, Eric?s wife, who didn?t have a lot of details. ?On my way, I was calling the emergency room in Petoskey. The nurse was saying, ?you need to be here now. Where are you?? ?

Todd was in the emergency room when Liz arrived. She said he was talking which made her feel really good, but he didn?t have a lot of vision and was in severe pain.

Todd was treated and taken to the intensive care unit where he was closely monitored. ?They were doing tests every hour, making him talk, move his tongue around,? said Liz. ?They were looking for any little sign that he was having issues with fluid. It was a waiting game for the first 12 hours. No light, no sound, no television, no talking.?

Doctors wanted Todd?s brain to have absolutely no stimulation, she said. It was like that for a couple of days.

?It got progressively better,? said Liz. ?It was a long first day, though.? But his condition seemed to be getting better.

There were still too many question marks, because of the unknowns that come with a head injury. ?You don?t know what the total outcome is going to be, what kind of impairments you are going to have.?

Todd was discharged December 9. While home, he still needed a walker and lots of care. In addition, he was never left alone, in the fear that he might suffer a seizure.

?Going downhill? Liz continued to treat her husband?s wound, as well as giving him pain and seizure medication, but within a week his condition deteriorated. ?He started going downhill?it is getting worse. He?s not eating, he?s sleepy all the time and I can?t get him up. It is really getting bad. ?I?m calling the doctor all the time and I?m crying because I can?t take care of him anymore,? said Liz.

Dr. David Morris tells Liz to bring Todd in for an EEG. Results would find fluid on his brain. On December 20, Todd went into surgery to release pressure from the fluid and repair the fracture.

Doctors used the equivalent of a tiny jack to push the nearly circular like piece of bone back to the surface. Two titanium plates were screwed into his skull over cracked areas. That seemed to alter Todd?s condition dramatically.

After Christmas, he started feeling better. The severe headaches and sensitivity to light were gone. He could also tolerate noise, which is an absolute necessity with four children under one roof.

Today, Todd is nearly 100 percent with no ailments or impairments. Eric said he even gets ?ornery? once in a while, which is a sure sign of normalcy.

A thankful family ?We were really fortunate,? said Liz. She said the Petoskey hospital sees three or four chain incidents a year. ?People don?t typically live.? ?It just wasn?t his day to go,? said Eric.

?I don?t know why it happened this way, why he was spared that day, but he was,? said Liz. ?I?m thankful for another year we got to spend together as a family. ?Until you are really faced with something serious that happens in your life, you realize that life can change so fast. You stop worrying about a lot of those little things. It makes me really realize how thankful I am for my family.?

?It was tough for me,? said Eric. ?I hooked th

e chain. I told him to do it this way.? ?I?m thankful to be alive,? said Todd. ?I?m thankful to all the people who were there that day to help me out, from the ambulance drivers, semi driver, Eric and everybody along the way. Thankfully, I can be here with my wife and kids.?

He?s also was thankful for sunglasses, as God was shining down on him in more ways than one.

If it wasn?t for safety sunglasses Todd was wearing, because of the sunny conditions, he might have lost his eyesight from the shattering glass. Todd picked pieces of glass out of his face for a couple of weeks after the accident.

Everyone in the family is grateful as well. ?I?m just thankful that my dad is here,? said Brenna, Todd?s oldest daughter. ?I don?t know what we would have done without him. It would have been so hard.?

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