By Wayne Hues climbed out of bed in the middle of the night and headed to the bathroom. But he stood up too quickly, and reaching the bathroom door, he swooned and fell forward. The 6’4″, 280-pound former Marine’s forehead landed hard against the wall, bending his neck so far back, his airway pinched shut. Wayne could barely breathe to call for help.
“I can’t feel my legs!” he shuddered.
At the hospital, the news was grim. “Your husband’s neck is broken,” doctors told Wayne’s wife, Christine. “We’re taking him to surgery, but we don’t know how much it will help.”
Wayne was left with partial use of his right hand and a little feeling in his left. He didn’t need a respirator, but it would take several months of rehab before he’d be ready to go home.
“Our house is two stories!” Christine panicked. “His wheelchair won’t even fit through the front door. We have to figure out a plan!”
Hope on the horizon
Christine sold the family’s Boise, Idaho, home and signed a contract for a one-story house already under construction in nearby Meridian. “It will need modifications,” Wayne’s sister, June, explained to the contractors, but they weren’t helpful. “We can’t make changes,” they told the family. “We have to deliver the home exactly how it is in the contract.”
“My husband can’t leave the hospital until he has an accessible home to go to,” Christine protested, but the company wouldn’t budge.
“We may as well start looking for a contractor to make the changes after the house is finished,” June said, but every contractor she called was either busy or had no experience with accessibility modifications.
June had all but given up when she reached the office manager at Levco Builders. “We can definitely help,” the woman said, and a few days later, Joe Levitch, owner of Levco, was touring the building site with Christine and June.
Before becoming a contractor, Joe spent more than 30 years as a paramedic, so he understood the challenges Wayne and his family faced. “The front, bedroom and bathroom doors need to be widened, and the bathroom will have to be gutted and redone,” he assessed. When he learned the VA was installing a front door ramp, he added, “We’ll want to widen the back door and put in a second ramp for emergencies.”
Joe was determined to keep costs as low as possible, so he began recruiting volunteer subcontractors and finding donated supplies. “Wayne’s a veteran, like my dad and brother,” he spread the word, then drew up plans for the building permit. Usually, the city processes permits on a first-come, first-served basis, but after Joe explained how Wayne couldn’t leave the hospital until the house was ready, they approved the plans overnight.
The day the Hues family closed on their new house, Joe and a troop of volunteer carpenters, plumbers and electricians began constructing the back door ramp and cutting drywall to frame new doorways. They gutted the bathroom, installed a walk-in shower and relocated the toilet to accommodate Wayne’s chair.
All the subcontractors were there to meet Wayne the day an ambulance brought him to his new home. Many brought their families, and the Meridian mayor was there to personally hand Wayne his new home’s certificate of occupancy.
A caring community
Wayne was overwhelmed by his new, accessible home and all the people who’d made it possible. “I can never thank you enough—you don’t know what this means to me and my family,” he fought back tears as one tradesman after another walked up for a welcome-home fist bump.
The new house raised Wayne’s spirits and gave him hope for better days to come—and they weren’t long in coming. Only three months after he got home, his employer sent a crew to set up a home office so he could continue his IT security work. “We can’t afford to lose a good employee like you,” they insisted.
Today, with physical therapy, Wayne’s hands are stronger, and some movement has returned to his right leg. He’s determined to keep going. “It’s a different life,” he says. “But I’m going to live and enjoy it to the fullest.”
