The long road back: Deputy struck by car battles physical, psychological wounds with VA's help

But his mental wounds, with their invisible scars, are just as deep, and his fight to heal from those is a battle all its own. And Blanchard and his wife credit the team at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center for getting him onto a path of healing and recovery.

By all rights, Blanchard, 54, a deputy with the Walworth County Sheriff’s Department and a U.S. Marine Veteran, shouldn’t be alive.

In the early morning hours of Aug. 1, 2021, Blanchard’s fellow deputies were in pursuit of a car speeding out of Lake Geneva. Blanchard was on Highway 120 north of Kniep Road, preparing to deploy stop sticks for the car, which was blowing through stop signs and reaching speeds over 100 mph.

As the car approached Blanchard, it careened out of control. It hit the guardrail Blanchard was behind, with the impact coiling it, wrapping up Blanchard and pulling him out of his boots.

The car then struck Blanchard, slicing into his leg and sending him flying 50 feet. Gravel pelted him like machine gun fire.

Blanchard was degloved, meaning the skin was peeled off his hands, exposing the bones. His face and head were similar; his nose was gone, and the remaining skin on his head and face had to be stapled or sewn back into place. His lips had to be reattached, and he had multiple broken bones in his face.

“Everything was broken,” his wife Angela said. “He couldn’t move. He was shattered. All the doctors say there is no explanation for him to be alive right now. But by the grace of God, he is here.”

“They told Angela I could possibly never walk again, and there was a possibility I would lose my hands,” Wayne said.

Wayne doesn’t remember the crash.  His first memory is waking up in Froedtert Hospital, looking at his bony, broken hands and screaming.

 “There were only bones, and the bones weren’t where they were supposed to be,” Angela said. “They were just … hanging.”

The long road back

What followed was a medically induced coma, a series of surgical procedures — more than 40, with more to come — and many touch-and-go moments when he would code and have to be revived, Angela said.

Doctors painstakingly put his broken body back together, using skin from the back of his skull to reconstruct his nose and skin from his legs to remake his hands. He had to relearn how to walk, feed himself, and everything else.

Eventually he was moved to a rehabilitation center, where he was plagued by inadequate care and negligence. Angela had to continually fight with staff to provide for Wayne’s basic needs, from food and medicine to bathroom care.

“He lost 20 pounds in 2½ weeks there,” Angela said.

It took intervention from Milwaukee VA’s Dr. Gwendolyn Hoben and discussions with the facility’s CEO to rectify the situation.

“I still have an apology letter (from the CEO) for withholding food and meds from my husband, which I find very sad.” Angela said. “I've kept that letter so that people don't think I'm nuts.”

He eventually transferred back to Froedtert, where the surgeries continued. But the hard work for Wayne was just starting as he toiled to make his repaired body functional again.

“He started surprising himself,” Angela said. “When you can’t even roll over or push a button, it starts getting to you. He had his down days, but he really took off from there.”

Wayne’s rehabilitation shifted to the couple’s home, where physical therapy often took more than seven hours each day.

“When I first got out in October, we were averaging 14 or 15 appointments a week,” Wayne said. “(Angela) would get me up at 5:30 in the morning, feed me, bathe me, toilet me, shower and dress me to leave the house at 8:30 in the morning, and we'd get home at 8 o'clock at night.”

Healing the mental wounds

Slowly, the physical wounds began to heal. But the mental wounds were still deep, slicing not only through Wayne but through Angela and their family as well.

Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder have plagued Wayne. And the mental and physical exhaustion of caring for her husband while also caring for her family and household have taken their toll on Angela.

“There have been times when I was having good moments and Angela was struggling,” Wayne said. “And I was so rude (to her) … and that was wrong on my part.

“I wasn’t treating Angela as a victim. … I treated her as my 24/7 caregiver and not my wife. I wasn’t focusing on the struggle that was real for her.”

Angela said she felt pressure to put on a brave face.

“When he was in the hospital, I had to pretend like everything was OK; I had to put on that charade,” she said. “He didn’t see that I was struggling. He didn’t see that I bawled for hours. You can have secondary PTSD from this.”

“When people have broken arms or broken legs, you can see the outer; you can see evidence of a physical injury,” Wayne said. “(But for people struggling with) mental health issues, you don't see what's inside.”

In early September, the couple was preparing to go to church when Wayne broke down in the shower. When Angela confronted him, he said he was fine. But they both knew he wasn’t, and the only way forward was to admit it.

“You don’t want to admit when you’re struggling,” Wayne said, noting his many roles in life — Marine, sheriff’s deputy, husband and father — don’t lend themselves to signs of weakness. But he had to be honest with himself.

“I'm sick of the pain. I'm sick of the pain getting worse. I'm sick of what this has done to my wife and my family,” he said. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to die; I don’t want to commit suicide, but I don’t want to be here.”

The couple, who have been buoyed by their faith throughout the ordeal, made it to church that Sunday. And the message of the sermon that day — “It’s OK to not be OK — resonated deeply with them.

“The struggle is real,” he said. “If there’s a dark hole, it’s easier to crawl into that dark hole than it is to stay out of it. It takes a warrior mindset.

“If you have to talk to a doctor or a chaplain, or you have to be put on medication, it’s OK,” Wayne said. “You just need to be honest with people and admit that the struggle is real. To admit that you need help is not wrong.”

Angela agreed.

“This has taught us a lot of humility. Neither one of us were good with accepting or asking for help. We've learned that you definitely need the outreach of people to get through stuff. You can't do it on your own.”

Help from the Milwaukee VA

The couple praises Milwaukee VA psychiatrist Dr. Michael McBride for helping them grapple with the psychological wounds.

“Dr. McBride has been amazing,” Wayne said.

“There are two doctors I would do anything for, and that’s Dr. Hoben and Dr. McBride,” Angela said. “Without them, not only would Wayne have been lost, but I would have been lost.

“(Dr. Hoben) took time for me,” Angela said. “She built up my confidence to be able to take care of him because there was so much home care. She stepped way above her job. I have never met a surgeon or a doctor as caring and wonderful and responsive as her.”

“Dr. McBride is a huge saving grace,” she said. “He’s not just a doctor; I would call him a very good friend. He’s someone I trust and count on. He doesn't always sugarcoat it, and he doesn't always tell me I'm right. He tells us both how it is.”

McBride noted that Wayne was very physically active before the crash — hiking, cycling, running and motorcycling — and had that all ripped away from him.

And while Wayne’s first hurdle was just surviving, he’s now grappling with what his life will look like moving forward, and McBride praised Wayne for understanding that he needed to reach out for help.

“That is the ideal — to be able to recognize when you need help, and to reach out and ask for help,” McBride said. “That takes a certain amount of humility to admit that … and that’s not part of military culture.

“I’ve witnessed their strength … to continue in the battle,” he said of the couple. “There have been so many changes they have had to adapt to. And the way they keep at it is a tribute to their relationship.”

McBride downplayed his role in Wayne’s recovery, saying he takes his cues from his patients and works to meet their needs.

“Part of this is being supportive … and instilling as much hope as possible,” he said.

A major milestone

A major hurdle in their recovery was overcome Nov. 17 when the man who was driving the car that hit Wayne was sentenced for his crimes.

Tony Perales, 26, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a litany of charges related to the crash. His sentencing hearing, which lasted nearly three hours, included gut-wrenching testimonies from Wayne, his family and colleagues as they asked the judge to give Perales the maximum sentence allowed — 34 years in jail.

Perales, who attended the hearing virtually from the Walworth County Jail, openly wept through much of the hearing and was so distraught that he couldn’t read his own statement to the judge.

In the end, Judge Bruce Schroeder sentenced Perales to 25 years in jail.

It wasn’t the maximum, and some in Wayne’s corner were openly angry about that.

But not Wayne. He sat quietly while the judge detailed his thinking and laid out the sentence. And afterward, Wayne gladly accepted the embraces of family and friends with a smile on his face.

“I’m pleased with what Judge Schroeder handed down,” Wayne said. “I came in here with an open mind, trusting that the court system would give justice.

“I hope that while he (Perales) is in prison, he has that remorse and opens up his heart, and maybe he can start helping people.”

While the sentencing was a significant milestone for the Blanchards, there are many more to come; Doctors have said Wayne’s physical recovery could take four years or more. But the mental recovery will probably last a lifetime.

“It’s not over,” Wayne said. “I’m still healing. I’m not going to be 100 percent healed. I may not ever be back to work. I will never be where I was before the incident.”

“But it’s getting better,” Angela added. “It’s been a journey, but everything is getting better.”