Someone was knocking urgently on the window of Brad Hermann’s car, shouting at him to wake up.
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Hermann, 42, opened his eyes. He looked down at his legs pinned inside his crushed 2012 Hyundai Sonata. He felt an intense pain around his pelvis.
He could hear sirens blaring. Loud machinery that sounded like a chainsaw.
Fire trucks, ambulances and police cars swarmed the area.
“It felt like I was in a war zone,” said Hermann. As soon as he realized he was alone in the car, he started yelling out his wife’s phone number.
“Call my wife!” he begged.
He had been driving to pick up his 9-year-old son, Lucas, from a summer camp about a mile away. He was driving through a busy intersection when a cement truck T-boned the driver's side of his car.
His family’s life changed at that moment.
Hermann has no memory of the impact. Trapped in his demolished car and unsure if his legs could move, he panicked about his son waiting to be picked up from camp.
He kept pleading with first responders to call his wife.
His wife, Amanda, had invited a couple of friends over to swim at their pool when she got the call from an EMT.
“Your husband has been involved in a serious car accident,” he said. They were taking him to Mercy Hospital, where Amanda works as a registered dietitian. Hermann needed to be rushed into surgery.
Their neighbor left to pick up Lucas, and a friend drove Amanda to the hospital. She called his parents and her parents. The route to the hospital passed by the site of the accident, where Amanda caught a glimpse of their car -- the roof peeled off by the Jaws of Life to extract her husband.
She had to look away.
During the ambulance ride, Hermann kept repeating her phone number.
“We will call your wife,” an EMT reassured him. “We promise. We have to save your life first,” she said. The last thing he remembers is hearing an officer talking to Amanda on the phone.
His bladder was torn apart. His pelvis was broken in three places. Spleen crushed. Left shoulder and 10 ribs broken. He was in the ICU for 11 days in June while doctors performed several surgeries.
He was on a ventilator for five days. When he started waking up, he went through a phase of delirium. He was able to move from the ICU to a regular hospital room, and eventually, to in-patient rehab.
He came home on July 18 -- 34 days after the accident. His wife has been helping care for him around the clock.
“We’re not really toward the end of this roller coaster,” Amanda said. “There’s lots of ups, downs, sharp turns, good moments and bad moments.”
Hermann still suffers from extreme nerve pain and blood clots in his leg. Some days it hurts to breathe. He can’t use his left leg yet, and has an external metal fixation device holding his broken pelvis in place. He will have to learn to walk again -- after running the Big Sur marathon earlier this year.
“I’ve cried myself to sleep several times at night,” he said. But he refuses to stay in those low moments, wondering why this happened to him. Not many people survive getting run over by a cement truck.
“God saved me for a reason,” he said. “It’s my job to figure out what that reason is.”
He said he believes part of it may be showing his children and others what it looks like to come back after getting knocked down so hard: “I want to show my children that life can deal you a bad hand, and you can only control how you respond to it.”
He connected with the firefighter who kept him calm and helped rescue him from the car. Hermann sent him an email, thanking him. He has also thanked the neighbors, co-workers, church members, friends and relatives who have rallied around his family to support them since the accident. He talks about how his wife’s devotion to his care has taught him what love and commitment in marriage look like.
He knows it will be a long time before he can coach his kids' sports again. He hasn’t been able to swim or play catch with them, but they have been watching the Olympics together. He and his daughter, Layla, 12, have cheered for swimmers, pole vaulters, beach volleyball players and track and field athletes.
Perhaps one of the most inspiring comebacks has been that of legendary gymnast Simone Biles, who has won 11 Olympic medals -- more than any other U.S. gymnast. She had withdrawn from most of her events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after suffering from the "twisties" and mental stress.
Biles fought back -- against doubters and haters and her own fears.
Each time she stands on the podium now, she embodies the same message Hermann wants to send: that no matter how hard the fall, you can rise again.