Trooper recovering from near head-on

Nebraska State Patrol trooper Jeff Van Stelton steadies himself on crutches, recovering from extensive injuries he suffered in a car accident while on duty the early morning hours of April 22. The driver of the other car and his passenger are believed to be from the Denver area. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

McCOOK, Nebraska -- It's been just more than two months now since the accident, and it'll probably be another six to eight months before the Nebraska State Patrol trooper seriously injured in a car accident in April can return to his duties.

Jeffrey Van Stelton, a trooper for six years, remembers everything about the accident that broke both of his legs and mangled and burned his patrol car. "I was knocked out for maybe only three or four seconds," Jeff says, relaxing recently in the patrol office in McCook. "I remember everything."

The near-head-on accident happened about two in the morning on April 22, four miles west of Stratton on Highway 34. "The other driver helped pull me out," Van Stelton said, and a passerby, Andy Downer, pulled him further away from the car. Van Stelton said it was another four or five minutes and the car was completely engulfed in flames.

Van Stelton left the accident scene in the Stratton ambulance, which was intercepted by an ambulance from McCook for the remainder of the trip to Community Hospital of McCook. "Then by helicopter to Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney," Jeff said. The motion of the helicopter made that trip really rough; he remembers the nausea, the motion sickness.

Doctors put 30-some stitches in Jeff's right elbow and splinted his left foot and left wrist. Nine days later, doctors performed surgery and put one screw in his wrist and five in his leg.

"The right leg was a spiral fracture, and it's healing itself," Jeff said. "The pelvis was stable, so they didn't do any surgery. It's fusing itself together gradually."

One crushed vertebrae and his broken nose are also mending by themselves, he said.

He says that his right arm, despite its stitches, "was my only functioning limb."

Jeff was in the Kearney Hospital until May 7, when he was transferred to the hospital in McCook. He came home May 12, and started physical therapy June 13.

"My wife was definitely glad to be home," Jeff said, smiling. She had stayed with her parents in Grand Island during Jeff's hospitalization in Kearney, he said, and they helped take care of the couple's 21-month-old son.

When can he return to work? "The pelvis and the leg take time to heal ... every pelvis heals differently," he said. He's thinking maybe another six months ... "hopefully by the end of the year," he said.

Jeff was touched by the community support for him and his family after the accident. "The Runza benefit ... the donation jars at McCook businesses ... the fund at McCook National Bank ... " Jeff said. His "gratitude list" includes the fire departments -- "Stratton was the primary," he said, but also Benkelman and McCook -- both Dundy and Hitchcock County sheriff's departments, the other troopers.

What's it like to be on the "other side" of a car accident? "It happened pretty fast," he said. "I was lucky to have cell phone reception where we were ... the way the car got hit, I had no radio," he said.

Jeff has gone to the patrol's impound lot to look at his car. "Not up close," he said. The accident was at night; he was surprised by the extent of the damage, especially to the passenger side.

He'll need a new car ... when he returns to duty at the end of the year.