Myrtle Beach-area man recovering from nearly fatal fall

George Welsh had the presence of mind, as he tumbled almost 40 feet from a rooftop deck, to keep himself from landing on his head or neck, or on the steel Dumpster below him.

Now in the hospital with a broken back, pelvis and wrist, he’ll be lucky to get back to his Socastee home for Christmas.

Of course, he’s lucky just to be alive.

“I was building my own scaffolding, trying to be safe,” said Welsh, a roofer with 12 years of experience. “I grabbed for one of my 2-by-4s and my foot slipped. I grabbed for the railing, and it gave way.

“I remember a tree, the Dumpster and the ground.”

Now out of intensive care after spinal surgery, Welsh said the incident plays itself out in his mind night after night.

“It’s a recurring nightmare. It’s very scary,” he said. “I wake up crying.”

A bad year

What a way to spend your ninth wedding anniversary.

But it has come to be a regular issue, said Adriane Welsh, George’s wife.

“Every year, something happens on Dec. 6. Of course, this was the worst,” she said. “We’re done with Dec. 6. We’re going to renew our vows on a different day, maybe for our 10th anniversary.”

The year all together hasn’t been a great one for the Welshes. Adriane and George had both been out of work for several months, Adriane from retail jobs, and George from construction.

George was getting unemployment when he was in a car accident in September that prevented him from going back to work for most of the month, even if there was a job for him, Adriane said.

And then a roofing job came along.

Roofers were to repair a roof on a three-story house on stilts in north Litchfield that had sustained some fire damage.

George, 32, and his two younger brothers, Willie Causey, 30, and Tim Welsh, 31, were all on the job that day.

George was at the lowest point of the roof, where the narrow deck was, he said, while Willie was at the peak.

“Being up there is like a hiking trail for me,” George said. “I’m an adventurous, outdoorsy person. I wasn’t afraid of heights.”

George had never had a roofing accident before, not in the years had been employed with John Anderson Roofing, a company that does jobs all over the area. On this day, however, he was working for another company.

He said before going up to work he always tried to get a mental picture of the complete job he had to do, and made himself aware of the work space and his surroundings, figuring out the work ahead of time so as not to be unprepared, because a roofer has to work fast.

But, he admits, this time he didn’t take some of the basic precautions -- wearing a harness and having someone spot him.

“I took a risk,” he said.

The fall

No one saw George fall, but Willie heard the impact.

That’s a sound he’ll never forget, he said from his brother’s hospital room.

The look on his face as he says this indicates it’s an understatement. He probably has nightmares about the sound.

At first, George said, he didn’t feel any pain. He thought he just got the wind knocked out of him, and that he’d be able to walk away.

What he didn’t know was that there was a good chance he wouldn’t walk at all.

He was able to recognize that falling on the edge or the steps of the big construction-site Dumpster could be fatal, and he tried to land on his feet so he could go limp, buckle and roll to diffuse the impact. He said he knew that he couldn’t land on his head or neck, either.

But in pushing himself off the Dumpster, he shattered his left wrist and landed on his pelvis on the hard, gravel drive, breaking his pelvic bone on the right side, and his first lumbar vertebrae.

A bone protruded into his spinal sac, which holds nerve endings and blood supplies, and doctors told him if he had hit a millimeter to the right, he’d have been paralyzed from the waist down.

Willie called 911 and he, Tim and other coworkers tried to keep George immoble and calm.

He never lost consciousness. He said he remembers everything, from lying on the ground to arriving at the hospital, where he finally got some pain medication.

When the ambulance arrived, EMS workers from Midway Fire and Rescue placed George on a backboard. That’s when the pain kicked in.

He rode in the ambulance and on a medical helicopter to Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, where neurosurgeons consulted on treatments.

George and Adriane met with Dr. Thomas Anderson, who offered options: surgery or no surgery.

“He told me if I didn’t have the surgery, I’d waste three years of my life lying flat on my back,” George said. “I took the surgery. He has been so good -- he’s very straightforward and tells you what you need to know, not what he thinks you want to hear. I couldn’t ask for a better doctor.”

Anderson could not be reached for comment.

So far, the treatment has worked. George has already been up walking -- a little farther each day -- and can spend part of each day sitting up in a chair, although everything hurts. His pelvis will have to heal on its own, he said, because of the way the bone broke, there was nothing the doctors could do.

His wrist has been surgically repaired, too, with pins and plates, so now he can more easily hold the walker that will become a familiar part of his physical therapy.

The hardest part of the first few days, he said, was not being able to see his two sons, Scott, 8, and Jason, 3.

“We snuck them into intensive care one evening,” Adriane said.

“They came in and kissed me -- it was like five hours packed into one minute,” George said. “It was hard to let them go.”

Since he was moved to the regular medical floor, he has gotten to see the boys more. They also got to see their father walking, which the Welshes hope will help reassure the boys that their dad will be OK.

“They were there, cheering me on,” said George, who was able to walk eight rooms down the hospital hallway. “The little one was giving me the thumbs up.”

Plenty of support

As of Thursday afternoon, Adriane was unsure when George would be discharged, but she knows he will go to a rehab center for at least a week, if not longer.

He’ll undergo physical therapy, likely for months, before his body is even stable, let alone really healing.

But George Welsh isn’t alone.

Though Adriane is there in his room every day, she has to spends nights at home with the boys. But someone in the Welsh family -- a brother or George’s mother -- has spent the night in George’s room with him almost every night since the back surgery.

He said he only has about 30 minutes a day when he’s alone -- there are always so many visitors. His father, who lives in Mt. Airy, N.C., and is a truck driver, has even made it to the Grand Strand to see his son.

Friends, some who are just coming back into town, make a hospital visit their first priority -- even those George hasn’t seen in a few years. They come to keep him cheerful, cracking jokes and lavishing affection on him.

And his boss, John Anderson, stops by to have coffee with George each morning.

George and Adriane’s families help every day, the couple said, babysitting, cooking meals, visiting, running errands -- anything they can do.

“People have been right there for me, helping us and praying for my recovery,” he said. “I know I have angels.”

The boys will have a good Christmas, Adriane said, because their families will make that happen and because George is still here.

If George is still in rehab when Christmas comes, Adriane said, “we will just bring Christmas to him.”

And if he gets home, “it’s going to be the best I can make it,” he said.

A long road

There’s no way of knowing just how much recovery George Welsh will accomplish.

But he hasn’t lost his smile.

He has, however, made some big decisions already.

“I’m definitely changing professions,” he said. “Something that keeps me closer to the ground.”

Adriane looks relieved when George says this.

Always mechanically inclined, he said perhaps he will take courses to become a mechanic, or perhaps an electrician.

“You can make great money as a roofer, but I think my time as a roofer has done all it’s going to do for me,” he said.

Still, he’s going to miss it.

“Being up on a roof, you can hear the breeze, and it’s like whispers in your ear,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of beautiful sunsets and sunrises, and you can really smell the air like you can’t on the ground. I’ve had a bald eagle come within arm’s length of me. It’s something not everyone gets to do.”

He wouldn’t be scared to go back up, he said, because this was “just an accident, like any other accident.” But he feels less inclined to take chances that could take him away from his family.

“At home, my boys and I like to get on the riding lawn mower, take the trailer out, gather up firewood, build a fire in the back yard and make s’mores,” he said with a smile. “I can’t wait to get home to my boys.”

George’s philosophy about life hasn’t changed since the accident, either. He still believes life is precious and that people shouldn’t give up, even when circumstances seem bleak.

“I’m still here, I can still walk, and I’ve got people who love me,” he said. “I haven’t seen everything, and I’m not going to stop trying.

“And I’m not going out without a smile.”