HOLLISTER
This Thanksgiving, Hollister resident Dave McNabb had something to be especially grateful for: After nearly six years, he could walk again and serve his family dinner at his home.
“The best part about it – this sounds cheesy – but you can get up and get stuff for people that got stuff for you,” said McNabb, 40, of walking again. “That’s nice.”
In 2002, McNabb had a fairly routine life working as a high-voltage technician with a maintenance company in the Bay Area.
But on January 5 of that year, an accident changed his life.
McNabb and a coworker were working on the voltage at IBM, borrowing parts from a substation that was down. He reached in with his wrench and suddenly got bolted with electricity.
“It’s like when you see lightening but 10 times brighter, and that’s all you see,” McNabb said.
Unable to let go of the wrench, McNabb was helpless with 12,500 volts of electricity running through his body for about four seconds until the substation shorted out and he was launched backward – his body and all of his clothes on fire.
McNabb said he remembers thinking he needed to put out the fire.
Running on pure adrenaline, he patted some of the flames, but was too weak to fully stop the fire. His coworker, however, was able to stop the fire on his clothes.
The ambulances were called, but McNabb still didn’t completely understand the extent of his injuries.
Based off others’ reactions at seeing him, he knew the burns were bad.
“You know that you’re hurt because you can smell the burnt in the air.”
He had to hold his arms up because the skin was hanging off them on the ride to Valley Medical Center in Santa Clara. He was awake the entire time.
When he arrived at the hospital, he was told he’d be put to sleep. The doctors induced a coma that lasted four months.
His parents, Judy and Gale McNabb, were told he had a 2 percent chance of survival. Each night, they were told it could be his last.
With over 65 percent of his skin burned, McNabb underwent surgery after surgery. When he finally awoke in May 2002, he said he was determined to heal.
“You just want to get better, but you have no energy. You can’t eat because of the medications, but you know that’s the only thing that’s going to make you stronger.”
McNabb finally left the hospital after an 18-month stint with a $6 million bill.
He went to stay with his family in San Martin, and he said his mother from that point became his “full-time nurse.”
Each morning, it would take at least 2-1/2 half hours just to prepare his bandages to be changed, McNabb said. His mother would feed him, bathe him and give him his medicine.
“My mom, she is a strong person. How can you do that for your kid?”
Having his mother wait on him wasn’t easy for McNabb, either. Used to being self-sufficient, he would get frustrated by his inability to do anything on his own.
“I’m very independent. So to have someone do everything, to have someone feeding you? That’s the worst.”
Still, McNabb said he never gave up hope and knew that if he fought hard enough, he would have his own life again.
Over the next years, McNabb underwent physical therapy and slowly started relearning things that had come naturally to him before the accident.
“I had to relearn everything from learning how to eat, put clothes on – buttons, zippers,” he said.
All of the medical bills added up, but fortunately for McNabb his lawyer, San Jose-based Attorney Richard Alexander, obtained a settlement with his old employer to help pay for the bills and get by until he could work again.
Finally last year, the final part of his recovery occurred. Medicare approved the money so he could get surgery on his feet and learn to walk again. After two surgeries, one in December and one in February, McNabb was finally able to leave behind his wheelchair.
“From the beginning, that’s what you are striving for – to get back to what you were before,” he said. “In my mind, now that I can walk it’s the happiest thing.”
McNabb said he feels like a much stronger man. His life is back to the way it was before the accident. Last month he asked his fiancee, Julie DiLaura, to marry him.
But although most things are back to normal, McNabb said the one thing that has changed is his outlook on life – now decidedly optimistic.
“You learn how great life is. You don’t wake up thinking, ‘Oh man, life’s rough,'” McNabb said. “We have it easy!”
