'Miracle' man grateful for life after brush with death

WASHINGTON TERRACE, Weber County — Meet a man who died three times in surgery and is now alive to talk about it, and most miracles we talk about don't seem so miraculous.

Making it to a meeting on time, passing a difficult class, or a sports team pulling off a squeaker victory seem to comprise the bulk of the miracles we proclaim.

But to 55-year-old David Morris, life is its own miracle — one that should be cherished, because it can be gone in an instant.

Everything seemed to be fine for Morris on Sept. 28. He had just moved to Utah and was up at 4 a.m. to take a family member to work in Salt Lake City from Clinton, in northern Davis County. Sometime before 6:30 a.m., as Morris headed south and passing through Kaysville, construction signs signaling a lane shift became confusing in the dark.

The last thing he remembers from that time is changing lanes on Interstate 15.

Five days later, he awoke to learn how he had beaten impossible odds after crashing into a concrete barrier.

Now, one month has passed, and he's lived to tell about his brush with death and his journey to a nearly full recovery.

He's had the past month to hear the story from the team of doctors and nurses who saved his life.

It started with paramedics from the Davis County Sheriff's Office, who had to cut Morris from the crumpled van he had crashed in Kaysville. About 6:30 a.m., a medical helicopter was summoned from Ogden Regional Medical Center.

Judy Ownby was the flight nurse on that call, and during the five-minute flight from the hospital in Washington Terrace to Kaysville, she and paramedic partner Dave Fluckiger learned about the single-car crash, that there was one victim who was semiconscious, blue and cold.

There had been no witnesses to the crash, Ownby said, so it was unknown how long Morris had been stranded in his van.

After paramedics administered oxygen, Morris began to come around and was yelling and combative, she said. During the five-minute flight back to the hospital, he was conscious and confused.

At the same time, Dr. Sheila Garvey was on her way to the hospital. Her on-call shift as a trauma surgeon started about 30 minutes early that day when she got the call to run down to the hospital.

By the time she arrived, Morris had been diagnosed and intubated, and as Garvey got to work, Morris' heart stopped.

The crash had crushed Morris' chest against his heart, causing blood to leak into a protective covering around the heart. There was so much pressure, said cardiovascular surgeon Dr. David Affleck, that Morris' heart was being strangled.