March 30, 2004, 11:21AM
Motorist lay paralyzed for 36 hours on Gulf Freeway
Passer-by on freeway spots him as traffic keeps whizzing past
By ROMA KHANNA
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
FRIENDSWOOD -- Paralyzed when he collapsed after a car crash, Ed Theisen lay alongside the Gulf Freeway with a broken neck, hidden among traffic barricades, for 36 hours before his rescue.
Night, and its sharp chill, came and went. So did the whizzing traffic of four Houston rush hours.
Theisen's wife, worried he had been carjacked, drove past twice as her husband prayed for small things such as the ability to grab a plastic bag fluttering nearby to warm his arm.
As the sun went down on day two, Theisen, 46, had begun to brace for another night when he was rescued March 23.
"Someone riding in the back of a pickup truck spotted him and called police," Debora Rodeffer-Theisen said Monday after her husband emerged from surgery. "The officer poked him with a nightstick thinking he was a dead body, but he was there and he was very much alive. It was a miracle."
Theisen's mother, Mary Ellen Theisen, told The Associated Press today that her son was resting after his surgery and doctors weren't certain if his paralysis would be permanent.
"There will be a lot of rehab," she said. `"He was paralyzed when they found him, so there's a lot of work to be done. But our spirits are good."
Theisen, a chemical engineer from Friendswood, began March 22 like most other days. He said goodbye to his 16-year-old stepson at about 6 a.m. before he set out for work in the Galleria area.
He was driving up the Gulf Freeway just outside of downtown when traffic slowed and he was rear-ended. Theisen pulled his white Ford Taurus to the shoulder, as did the other driver, and got out to exchange insurance information.
Rather than walk into the heavy oncoming traffic, Theisen stepped between the concrete barriers near the HOV lane. Suddenly, he felt weak.
"He thought he was having a heart attack or a stroke," Rodeffer-Theisen said. "He grabbed the concrete barrier and just went down."
Theisen was instantly paralyzed, unable to move anything except his right hand 4 or 5 inches.
The other driver did not see where Theisen went and told police, who made an accident report, that he had just walked off, his wife said. The tow truck driver who hauled off Theisen's car about 7 a.m., and who likely was his last hope, did not see him, Rodeffer-Theisen said.
"He passed the time thinking about his life and talking to God," Rodeffer-Theisen said.
As Theisen lay on his side, staring at a concrete wall, his shouts inaudible to passing traffic, his family began to think the worst.
"I came home that night at 6 and he was not there. He is always home or has left a message, so I checked the machine," Rodeffer-Theisen said. "There was a message from his office saying, `Ed where are you?' And then I began to worry."
She filed a missing person report with the Harris County Sheriff's Department and, in the process, learned that Theisen's car had been in a crash and was at an impound lot.
"But that just fit the carjacking theory," she said, "that someone had stolen the car, crashed it and ran off."
As the hours wore on with no explanation, friends began to call area morgues.
Rodeffer-Theisen, friends and family were plastering their Friendswood neighborhood with missing-person fliers with Theisen's photograph, when the Houston Fire Department called to say that he was alive. Rodeffer-Theisen immediately called Memorial Hermann Hospital.
"They said, `We have him here and he is alive and he is saying he loves you,' " Rodeffer-Theisen said. "He was covered in Houston pollution -- it was coming out of every pore -- but he was alive."
Doctors determined that Theisen had broken his neck and suffered a spinal cord injury. He underwent surgery on his neck Monday. He will remain in traction for some time and will have to undergo physical therapy to regain movement.
"He told me he thought he had a new vocation -- to be in a wheelchair," she said through tears.
His family is eager to watch him recover, but they also are searching for the person who spotted him and called police.
"That person, whoever it was, saved his life," Rodeffer-Theisen said. "And I just want to find them and say `Thank you. Thank you for giving me my husband back.' "
