How do you recover from a head-on car accident that crushes almost every bone in your body? Leaves you in a coma? Results in surgery after surgery? Requires months in rehabilitation, where you have to learn to walk and use your hands again?

Ask Steve and Tammy Wentz.

The Adams County couple have done all of this – and more – in the past year and a half.

They did it with support and love from their kids. With prayers and kindness from friends and strangers. With grit and hope and perseverance.

And with the remarkable skill and compassion of an entire team of caregivers at WellSpan York Hospital’s Level 1 Trauma Center, who rebuilt their bodies, stitched them back together and rooted for every step they took toward recovery.

“The people in the trauma section are the cream of the crop. Our care was specialized for us,” says Steve, 72, a former banker and retail manager.

Tammy, 66, a retired medical social worker, says, “I have worked in health care for 25 years and you either have it or you don’t. What those people do in the trauma unit, day in and day out – that’s care. That’s caring for humankind right there.

“I love those people. They come in confident in a bad situation and when that’s all you have to hold onto, it becomes bigger than life.”

‘An awful thing’

The Wentzes were driving home from a dinner out in Chambersburg on Labor Day weekend 2023. Steve’s brother, Dave, who was visiting from Philadelphia, was sitting in the back seat. They were driving east on Route 30 when a car veered into their lane and slammed into them head-on, killing the other driver.

The Wentzes' Ford Explorer, after the head-on accident.

Dave died shortly after the accident.

The last thing Steve remembers is two headlights coming straight at him. A moment later, almost every bone in his body was shattered: both thigh bones or femurs, both knees, one of his shin bones, one of his heels, a hip, his back, his ribs and both wrists. Both of his lungs collapsed and his kidney (he has only one) was bleeding.

As she saw the car heading toward them, Tammy threw up her hands, a reflexive motion to protect herself, just as her air bag exploded, an action a doctor later told her was “like putting her hands on a bomb.” The impact broke both wrists. The accident also broke one of her femurs, her collarbone, her sternum, her ribs, her pelvis and two of her fingers.

“It was an awful thing,” Tammy says. “There was glass, there was blood, there was air bag dust and I remember saying to Steve, ‘Please tell me this is just a bad dream,’ and it wasn’t. I was looking at myself and thinking, ‘Why can’t I get out of this car?’ The middle finger on my left hand was pointing sideways.”

Helicopters and multiple emergency medical units swooped in to help. Steve and Tammy were both airlifted to WellSpan York Hospital, arriving about 20 minutes after the accident.

The long road back

The next weeks were a blur. The trauma surgery team put Steve in a medically induced coma so they could work on his bleeding kidney and the tear in his diaphragm. They worked rapidly – getting him to the operating room within an hour of his arrival and stopping his internal bleeding – which was key to saving his life.

Putting him back together eventually required the specialized skills of an entire team and almost 10 surgeries. Fortunately, WellSpan’s Trauma Center offers care by “orthopedic traumatologists,” orthopedic surgeons who are expert at treating complex, severe injuries like those suffered by the Wentzes.

Dr. Paul Muccino repaired his legs and hip. Dr. Richard Trevino repaired his wrists. Dr. Christian Hall repaired his feet and ankles. And Dr. Grant Sorkin, a neurosurgeon, repaired his spine. Steve also received the expert daily care of the trauma intensive care unit team.

“He was one bad injury from top to bottom. It’s a small miracle he survived,” says Dr. Muccino. A member of the WellSpan York Hospital trauma team since 2009, the surgeon says Steve ranks in the top five worst cases he has seen in the past 15 years.

Tammy also had multiple surgeries, with Dr. Muccino repairing her femur and Dr. Trevino repairing her wrists.

Both of the Wentzes required extensive rehabilitation stays, followed by support from WellSpan visiting nurses. Tammy retired during the ordeal due to her extensive time off work. Steve, who had been working as driver for a local retirement community, also left his job due to his injuries. The couple also downsized from their home in Cashtown, Franklin County, to a smaller house in Fairfield, Adams County, with living space all on one floor, which they have nicknamed “the healing house.”

Tammy has resumed a normal routine, walking and driving. Steve still uses a rolling walker and a cane but is working on becoming more mobile and hopes to return to driving.

Every step of the way

Steve sums up the care he and his wife received from WellSpan this way: “You couldn’t ask too much of them. It was always, ‘That’s why I’m here,’ or ‘Anything you need.’”

Tammy seconds this. She couldn’t even pull up her covers on her bed due to her shattered wrists and felt completely helpless in the first weeks. Everyone – aides, nurses, lab workers – went out of their way to assist her, she says.

The Wentzes point to several incidents that they say illustrate the level of personalized care they received.

Tammy had to recently return to WellSpan York Hospital for a follow-up surgery. The receptionist at the main desk recognized the family from the accident more than a year before. Tammy said, “That happened during her first week on the job and she said, ‘Oh I remember you guys!’”

She adds, “After my surgery, I was worried, could I go back and lie in a hospital bed again? They all knew our story and they made sure they put me in a room that was not anywhere near the one where I spent some of the worst days of my life. Those are the little details that matter. How many people would even think about that?”

The couple also both vividly remember their initial follow-up visit with Dr. Muccino. He had tears in his eyes when he walked into the exam room.

Dr. Paul Muccino and Tammy and Steve Wentz, at a recent appointment.

“We do everything possible for a patient. It took a whole team doing their part and doing it well,” Dr. Muccino says. “I treat them like they are going to make it and they are going to survive. We know sometimes we are fighting an uphill battle, but we are rooting for them. As badly as they were injured, to see them in my office, I was so happy! I told him, ‘You are a miracle. The fact that you made it here is a miracle. You have no idea how close you were to not making it.’”

Tammy says, “He sat down. He hugged Steve. He hugged me. We were like, ‘Wow. You guys did this. It’s because of you that we are here.’ ”