IDA, Mich. - In the last year Tim Berta nearly lost his life, fought daily to regain his speech and learn to walk again, and starred in his own Super Bowl commercial.
The 23-year-old was critically injured on March 2 when a bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team flipped over an interstate overpass and plummeted 30 feet onto I-75 in Atlanta, killing seven people.
Though he survived, his injuries were so extensive that it still is too soon to tell whether he ever will reach the end of a long road to recovery.
But his doctors say his progress thus far is remarkable, and he was featured in a University of Toledo Medical Center commercial that shows him ardently trying to regain the skills he lost as a result of his injuries.
The TV spot, which ran throughout January, also was shown during halftime of the Super Bowl in Toledo's media market, essentially turning Tim into a local celebrity.
"I would trade all of the attention in a heartbeat if I could walk, drive a car, or drink water," he told The Blade last week during an interview at his home in Ida, Mich. His speech was slow but noticeably improved since his commercial was filmed in October.
What the camera didn't capture were the trials Tim and his family endured in the months before and after the commercial.
From the uncertainty of his ability to survive, to the gut-wrenching death of a Bluffton baseball player in the hospital room next to him, to the enormous task of trying to regain his health, each day is a mixture of hardship and joy for a family adapting to a new reality.
"Our lives were turned upside down," said Rob Berta, Tim's father. "We were just an all-American normal family. Life was normal. When this happened, everything had to change."
Doctors at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta had to act fast to save Tim Berta's life.
Bluffton players David Betts, of Bryan; Tyler Williams and Scott Harmon, both of Lima, and Cody Holp, of Arcanum, Ohio, near Dayton, were all pronounced dead at the scene. Bus driver Jerry Niemeyer and his wife, Jean, both of Columbus Grove, Ohio, suffered the same fate.
Tim, the lone senior on the bus who was with the team as a student assistant coach, and freshman pitcher Zach Arend, of Oakwood, Ohio, were among the living - but just barely.
Both suffered ruptured spleens and severe head trauma, so much so that one of Tim's relatives who lives near Atlanta didn't recognize his face when he first saw him.
The two players' spleens were removed at Grady and they were wheeled upstairs for CAT scans, but Tim was sent immediately back to surgery because of a blood clot on his brain.
"He's extremely lucky," said Dr. Tallat Rizk, who oversees Tim's rehabilitation in Toledo. "There were doctors at the hospital who were ready to operate on his brain immediately, and it saved his life."
Dr. Rizk said bleeding all over Tim's brain caused "severe injury." To keep him alive, doctors removed a piece of his fractured skull to allow the brain room to swell.
He also had multiple fractured ribs, a broken collarbone and shoulder blade, and shards of glass stuck in his left hip.
"When we got [to Atlanta] they didn't expect Tim to live through the day," Tim's mother, Karen Berta, said.
Neither the Bertas nor the Arends knew if their sons were alive the morning of the crash.
The bus wrecked just after
5:30 a.m. on a Friday morning while the baseball team was en route to Sarasota, Fla., to begin its 2007 season. The Bertas and Arends watched in horror as television reports of the crash began to roll in.
"I kept seeing all those kids that walked off that bus, and we kept saying, 'Is that Zachary? Is that Zachary?'•" recalled Caroline Arend, Zach's mother. "But I knew what he had on. That wasn't him."
The Bertas thought they saw Tim standing on the highway, but their hearts sank when Mrs. Berta saw the same footage again and realized they were looking at someone else.
It wasn't until hours later that the Bertas and the Arends learned their sons were still alive but were in critical condition.
Zach Arend, 18, sustained head injuries, a lacerated liver, a collapsed lung, crushed sternum, broken ribs, and a broken pelvis.
The two Bluffton students were both admitted to Grady's intensive care unit, where they remained together for a week. Their families bonded, driving to and from the hospital, sharing meals, opening their souls to each other.
When Zach Arend died the morning of March 9, one week after bus crashed, the Bertas were devastated.
"That was the hardest day of my life when Zach died," Mr. Berta said. "The worst day of my life."
An Atlanta priest who was counseling both families that week arrived at the hospital about 3 a.m., after Zach Arend's condition took a turn for the worse. The Bertas said doctors did everything they could, but Zach died about 6 a.m.
Mrs. Arend and her husband, Dana, won't talk about the morning their son died, but the Bertas remember that in the face of unspeakable tragedy and grief, the Arends still supported Tim.
"Dana is the most unselfish man I've ever met," Mr. Berta said, his eyes welling with tears and his voice trailing off. "We were sitting outside the room, and Zach had only been dead 10 minutes. And they're grieving, and we're trying to help them, and [Mr. Arend] says to me, 'You've got to get Tim better.'•"
Mrs. Berta added: "It was like they took all their hopes for Zach and put them on Tim."
Mr. Arend asked if he could speak to Tim, and crept up next to his bed for a pep talk. The Bertas were in awe of the Arends' support, but they felt guilty that Zach was dead and Tim was alive.
Before Mr. Berta left the ICU that morning, the same Atlanta priest grabbed him and offered words that have stayed with the Bertas these last 11 months.
"He pulled me to him and he whispered in my ear," Mr. Berta said. "He said, 'Rob, this isn't your choice.' He said, 'I don't want you to feel guilty. You didn't make Zach die. God made that decision, you didn't.'
"That was the best thing he could've said to me."
Tim said he feels blessed not only because he is still alive, but because he remembers nothing of the crash or its gory details.
"[I look at it] as God's blessing because I wouldn't want to remember that kind of pain," he said.
The Bluffton student coach didn't know the full extent of what happened on that bus - the crash, the casualties, the suffering of his friends and their families - until June 10, just days after he endured his fourth surgery, this one to replace the piece of skull doctors removed in Atlanta.
At that point he had long since turned the corner: On March 27 doctors had operated to clear a life-threatening lung infection.
His parents said they saw an immediate improvement in their son after that surgery. His vital signs grew stronger, he was less dependent on a respirator to breathe, and he began to move his arms and legs with more regularity.
Tim first opened his eyes on March 30 - the day Bluffton played its first baseball game after the accident.
And on April 12, while Tim was still recovering at Grady, baseball's former all-time home run king, Hank Aaron, paid him a visit.
"When he [arrived], I first thought he had the wrong room," Mrs. Berta said. "He was so wonderful, so down-to-earth. No one called him to come, asked him to come. He just did."
Tim was transported from Atlanta to UT Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio, on April 14. It wasn't until June that his parents told him he was in a bus crash that killed five of the Bluffton players he coached, the bus driver, and the bus driver's wife.
"I was in the hospital and I thought, 'What's going on? Why the heck does my arm hurt? What the heck happened?" he said. "Then my parents told me, and I realized how lucky I was."
Speech has been one of the hardest things to recover. It wasn't until May 15, more than two months after the accident, that Tim said his first word - "Ouch."
Physical therapists in Toledo were trying to move his left arm from his chest and his dad noticed him grimace.
"I told him that if it hurts, say, 'Ouch,' and when he did, we were like, 'Holy cow, he said it,'•" Mr. Berta said.
The portions of Tim's brain that were injured control muscle movement, speech, and swallowing. His memory also was partially affected, according to his physician, Dr. Rizk.
"With the type of traumatic brain injury he had, our prognosis is always guarded at best," the doctor said. "We've had to reteach him everything."
Tim has been able to walk on his own - that is, small, slow steps, with someone walking right behind him in case he stumbles - for about three weeks.
He can eat solid foods and has been able to print for months, and his doctors think he'll be able to drink water soon. But for now, he drinks thickened milk - which Dr. Rizk said is easier to swallow for someone with Tim's injuries.
Dr. Rizk said most of the recovery from brain injuries takes place in the first three to six months, but smaller improvements can be made from six months up to two years.
The Bertas, physicians, and therapists see improvements weekly, if not daily.
"It's clear he's a fighter," Dr. Rizk said. "We did not expect to see the results we've seen in Tim. But every time we see him, we see another huge change. It's very encouraging."
Tim, who was released from the UT Medical Center on June 21, returns three times a week to undergo intense physical, speech, and occupational therapy sessions. Just last week he was walking on a treadmill, working out in a weight room, sounding out syllables with a speech therapist, and completing word puzzles during occupational therapy.
He has home health aides 10 hours a day during the week for additional rehabilitation, but he also works on his own.
He plays chess to keep his mind sharp, and he listens to his own voice message on his cell phone created before the accident to remind him what his voice used to sound like.
"I saw him briefly before [he was discharged from the hospital in June], and to see him now compared to where he was then is nothing short of a miracle," said Jennifer Bortz, a physical therapy assistant at the UT Medical Center.
The Bertas declined to discuss any financial burden their son's recovery and rehabilitation has caused.
There was a spaghetti dinner fund-raiser in March at the family's church - St. Joseph Catholic Church in Ida - as well as a fund-raiser sponsored by Applebee's in Dundee, Mich. A family trust was set up at Ida's Monroe Bank and Trust branch to help pay Tim's medical expenses.
Mr. Berta, 53, a postal worker in Monroe, and Mrs. Berta, 53, who works in the finance department at Tenneco Inc. in Monroe, both had to take leaves of absence from their jobs while their son was in Atlanta.
They're both back at work, and say they juggle their work loads to coincide with their son's rehabilitation schedule. The home nurses and the Bertas' daughters - Trisha, 21, and Tonya, 17 - also help.
"Tim's kind of become top dog," Mr. Berta said.
Before the accident, Tim had his sights set on a career in nursing. A senior at Bluffton, he was eight weeks from graduation when the crash occurred, and an acceptance letter from Lourdes College into its postgraduate program arrived at his house the day after the accident.
His doctors and therapists don't know if he will recover to the point where he can resume his quest to get into nursing, but they hope he will one day live on his own.
For now, Tim is focused on short-term goals. He hopes to soon start taking one of the four classes he has yet to finish at Bluffton - likely at home - en route to completing his bachelor's degree in biology.
He also has received two special invitations.
One is to throw out the first pitch at Bluffton's first home baseball game on March 18. The other is to accept the Don King Courage Award from the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame local chapter on March 10.
Tim, who played four years of football as a wide receiver for Bluffton and is already in the foundation's hall of fame, will receive the award and speak at Gladieux Meadows on Heatherdowns Boulevard in Toledo.
He accepted the foundation's invitation to speak during a therapy session at the UT Medical Center on Thursday.
"When I first heard about getting the courage award, I thought they should give it to someone who was almost dead," Tim said. "But then I thought, 'I was.'•"
Contact Joe Vardon at: jvardon@theblade.com or 419-410-5055.
First Published February 10, 2008, 12:46 p.m.
